The Master

by Colm Toibin

  When he asked the manservant his name, he discovered that he was not a manservant at all, but an army corporal, and he realized that the Wolseleys had vast numbers of these at their disposal. He was called Hammond and had a quiet voice and an air of smooth discretion. Henry felt immediately that Hammond would be in great demand as a manservant should the army ever run out of use for him.

  At lunch the conversation turned, as he knew it would, to events at Dublin Castle.

  ‘The Irish were awful anyway,’ Lady Wolseley said, ‘and their not attending the season should be greeted with relief. The dreary matrons dragging their dreary daughters about the place and dinnering up every possible partner for them. The truth is that no one wants to marry their daughters, no one at all.’

  There were five guests from England, two of whom he knew slightly. He noticed their quietness, their smiling faces and sudden bursts of laughter as their host and hostess competed with each other to be amusing.

  ‘So Lord Houghton,’ Lady Wolseley continued, ‘thinks he is the royal family in Ireland and the first thing the royal family has to have is subjects, but since the Irish refuse to be his subjects, he has imported a whole cargo of subjects from England, as I’m sure Mr James knows only too well.’

  He did not speak and was careful to make no gesture which might signify assent.

  ‘He has invited anyone who would come. We had to rescue Mr James,’ her husband added.

  He thought to say that Lord Houghton was a very good host, but he realized that it was better he should not take part in this conversation.

  ‘And to make it all seem jolly and normal,’ Lady Wolseley continued, ‘he has had balls and banquets. Poor Mr James was so exhausted when he arrived here. And Lord Houghton last week invited us to an evening in his own apartments. It was indeed gruesomely intimate. I was placed beside a very rough man and Lord Wolseley placed beside his very rough wife. The husband at least knew not to speak but the wife was not so trained. We didn’t mind them, of course, we didn’t mind them at all.’

  That evening as he was retiring, Lady Wolseley walked down one of the long corridors with him. Her tone suggested that she was ready to offer him confidences about the other guests.

  ‘Is Hammond satisfactory?’ she asked. ‘I’m sorry he was not here to meet you when you arrived.’

  ‘He is perfect, he could not be better.’

  ‘Yes, that is why I chose him,’ she said. ‘He has great charm, does he not, and discretion, I think?’

  She studied him. He said nothing.

  ‘Yes, I thought you would agree. He’s looking after you and nobody else, and, of course, available all the time. I think he feels honoured to be looking after you. I told him that when we were all dead and forgotten, only you would be remembered and your books read. And he said something very lovely, in that lovely quiet voice of his. He said, “I will do everything to make him happy during his stay.” So simple! And I think he meant it.’

  They had arrived at the foot of the staircase; her face seemed to glow with insinuation. He smiled at her mildly and said good-night. As he turned to go up the second flight he could see that she was still watching him, smiling strangely.

  The curtains had been drawn and a fire was burning in his sitting room. Soon, Hammond came in with a jug of water.

  ‘Will you be up late, sir?’

  ‘No, I will retire very soon.’

  Hammond was tall and his face in the firelight seemed thinner now and softer. He moved towards the window and straightened the curtains, and then approached the fireplace to rake the fire in the grate.

  ‘I hope I am not disturbing you, sir, but this coal is most inferior,’ he said, almost whispering.

  Henry was sitting in an armchair beside the fire.

  ‘No, please, go ahead,’ he said.

  ‘Would you like your book, sir?’

  ‘My book?’

  ‘The book you were reading earlier. I can fetch it for you, sir, it’s in the other room.’

  Hammond’s brown eyes rested on him, the expression friendly, almost humorous. He wore no beard or moustache. He stood still in the yellowish gaslight, at his ease, as though Henry’s failure to reply were something he had anticipated.

  ‘I don’t think I will read now,’ Henry said slowly. He smiled as he began to rise.

  ‘I feel I have disturbed you, sir.’

  ‘No, please, do not worry. It is time for bed.’

  He handed Hammond a half-crown.

  ‘Oh thank you, sir, but it is not necessary.’

  ‘Please, I’d like you to take it,’ he said.

  ‘I’m grateful, sir.’

  BY LUNCHEON the next day more guests had arrived to people the empty rooms and corridors of Lord and Lady Wolseley’s apartments. Soon, jolly noises and much laughter filled their quarters. The Wolseleys announced that they were to have their own ball, Lady Wolseley adding that those at the castle might benefit from a lesson in how a proper ball might be held so far away from home.

  When fancy dress was mentioned, however, Henry demurred, stating that he was too old-fashioned to dress up. As he spoke to Lady Wolseley towards the end of the evening, she insisting that he dress in military costume, and he insisting that he would not, a young man, clearly one of the new arrivals, interrupted them. He was eager and confident and obviously a great favourite of Lady Wolseley.

  ‘Mr James,’ he said, ‘my wife wishes to go as Daisy Miller, perhaps you can help us design her costume.’

  ‘No one can be Daisy Miller,’ Lady Wolseley said, ‘the rule for the ladies is that we must be a Gainsborough, a Romney or a Sir Joshua. And I can tell you, Mr Webster, that I intend to outshine all.’

  ‘How strange,’ the man replied, ‘that is precisely what my wife said this morning. What an extraordinary coincidence!’

  ‘No one can be Daisy Miller, Mr Webster,’ Lady Wolseley said sternly, as though she were angry, ‘and please remember that my husband commands an army and bear in mind also that some of the old pensioners when roused can be very fierce.’

  Later, Henry took Lady Wolseley aside.

  ‘And who, pray, is Mr Webster?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh he’s an MP. And Lord Wolseley says that he will go places if he can stop being so clever. He speaks a great deal in the House and Lord Wolseley says he must stop doing that too. His wife is very rich. Grain or flour, I think, or oats. Anyway, money. She has the money, and he has everything else you could want, except tact. And that is why I am so glad you are here. Perhaps you could teach him some of that.’

  HAMMOND WAS Irish, although he spoke with a London accent, having been taken to England when he was a child. He seemed to like lingering over his tasks and talking as he cleaned. He apologized as he came and went. Henry made clear that he did not mind the interruptions.

  ‘I like the hospital, sir, and the old soldiers,’ he said. His voice was soft. ‘They’ve mostly been in the wars and some of them fight their wars all day, sir. They think the windows and doors are Turks and Zulus or whatever and want to charge at them. It’s funny here, sir. It’s half Ireland and half England, like myself. Maybe that’s why I feel at home.’

  His presence remained easy and welcome. He was agile and light on his feet, despite his height. His eyes were never cast down, they looked ahead in a way which made their owner equal to what he saw, instantly taking everything in, understanding everything. He seemed to make calm judgements as he moved about.

  ‘Her ladyship told me I should read one of your books, sir. She said they were very good. I would like to read one of them, sir.’

  Henry told Hammond that he would send him a book when he returned to London. He would send it to the Royal Hospital.

  ‘To Tom Hammond, sir, Corporal Tom Hammond.’

  Each time Henry returned to his chambers from a meal or a walk in the grounds, Hammond would find a reason to visit. The reasons were always good. He never idled or made unnecessary noise, but slowly, as the days went on, he became
more relaxed, spent time standing by the window talking and asking questions and listening carefully.

  ‘And you came from America to England, sir. Most people do it the other way. Do you like London, sir? You must like it.’

  Henry nodded and said that he did like London, but tried to explain that sometimes it was difficult to work there, too many invitations and distractions.

  At meals, amid all the talk and laughter and effort to amuse, Henry longed for the moment when Hammond first came into the room. That was the moment he waited for, the moment which filled his thoughts as he sat through dinner, Lady Wolseley and Mr Webster competing with each other in conversation. He thought of Hammond standing against the window of the sitting room listening. Once back in his chambers, however, after a few questions from Hammond, or after he had tried to explain something to him, he longed for silence again, for Hammond to leave him now.

  He knew that everything he had done in his life, indeed everything he had written, his family background and his years in London, would seem impossibly strange to Hammond. Yet despite this, there were times when Hammond was in his chambers when he felt close to him, felt uplifted somehow by the talk between them. But then Hammond would begin to speak about his own life, or his hopes, or his views on the world, and a vast distance would appear between them, made all the greater because Hammond did not recognize it as he chattered on, honest and unselfconscious, and – Henry had to admit this – quietly tedious.

  ‘IF THERE WERE a war between Great Britain and the United States, Mr James, where would your loyalty lie?’ Webster asked him during a lull in the conversation after dinner.

  ‘My loyalty would lie in making peace between them.’

  ‘And what if that should fail?’ Webster asked.

  ‘I happen to know the answer,’ Lady Wolseley interrupted. ‘Mr James would find out which side France was on and he would join that side.’

  ‘But in Mr James’s story about Agatha Grice, his American loathes England and he has the most horrible things to say about us.’ Webster spoke loudly so that the entire table now paid attention. ‘I think he has a case to answer,’ Webster continued.

  Henry looked across the table at Webster whose cheeks were reddened by the heat of the room, and whose eyes were bright with excitement at holding the table like this, managing the conversation.

  ‘Mr Webster,’ Henry said quietly when he was sure that the young man had finally finished, ‘I witnessed a war and I saw the injuries and the damage done. My own brother came close to death in the American Civil War. His injuries were unspeakable. I do not, Mr Webster, speak lightly of war.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Lord Wolseley said. ‘Well spoken!’

  ‘I merely asked Mr James a simple question,’ Webster said.

  ‘And he provided you with a very simple answer which you seem to have trouble comprehending,’ Lord Wolseley said.

  AS LORD AND Lady Wolseley made preparations for their ball, consulting their guests about arrangements and details, and spending a good deal of time supervising decorations in the Great Hall, more friends began to arrive, including a woman whom Henry had met several times at Lady Wolseley’s. Her name was Gaynor, and her late husband had held some important rank in the army. She appeared with her daughter Mona, aged ten or eleven, and Mona, as the only child among them, became much admired and discussed because of her shy beauty and natural manners. She moved with poise and managed to seem happy not to speak much or make any demands, merely to be charmingly present.

  On the day before the ball a great cold descended on Dublin and Henry was forced to return early from his walk in the grounds. He found himself passing by one of the small rooms downstairs in the Wolseleys’ apartments. Lady Wolseley was busy gathering wigs together so that the ladies could try them on before dinner. Mr Webster was with her, and Henry stopped in the doorway, preparing himself to speak to them. They were involved in the game of choosing the wigs, examining them and laughing and handing them one to the other, like conspirators in some happy dream as Lady Wolseley forced Webster to try on a wig and then threw her head back with laughter as he tried it on her. They were too deep in conspiracy to be decently interrupted. Suddenly, he noticed that the child Mona was seated in one of the armchairs. She was doing nothing, neither assisting them at the round table, nor joining in whatever joke had caused them to turn towards each other once more, Lady Wolseley covering her mouth with her hand.

  Mona was a picture of girlish perfection, but as Henry watched her he noticed how hard she seemed to be concentrating on the scene in front of her. Her gaze was neither puzzled nor hurt, but there was a sense that she was putting energy into a look of mild contentment and sweetness.

  He pulled himself back from the doorway just as Lady Wolseley let out another shrill laugh at some remark of Mr Webster’s. In his last glimpse of Mona she was smiling as though the joke had been a pleasantry to amuse her, everything about her an effort to disguise the fact that she was clearly in a place where she should not be, listening to words or insinuations she should not have to hear. He went back to his rooms.

  He thought about the scene he had witnessed, how vivid it was for him, like an event he had observed before and knew well. He sat in his own armchair and allowed his mind to picture other rooms and doorways, other silent lockings of eyes and his own distant presence, as he read into the moment a deeply ambiguous meaning. He realized now that this was something he had described in his books over and over, figures seen from a window or a doorway, a small gesture standing for a much larger relationship, something hidden suddenly revealed. He had written it, but just now he had seen it come alive, and yet he was not sure what it meant. He pictured it again, the girl so innocent, and her innocence so crucial to the scene. There was nothing, no nuance or implication, which she did not seem capable of taking in.

  When he looked up, Hammond was calmly watching him.

  ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you, sir. The fire needs constant attention in this weather. I will try not to make any noise.’

  Henry was aware that at the moment he had lifted his head from his reveries, Hammond had been studying him unguardedly. And now he was making up for it by moving quickly, as though he were going to remove the coal scuttle without speaking again.

  ‘Have you seen the little girl, Mona?’ Henry asked him.

  ‘Recently, sir?’

  ‘No, I mean since she arrived.’

  ‘Yes, I meet her in the corridors all the time, sir.’

  ‘It’s strange for her to be alone here with no one else her own age. Does she have a nurse with her?’

  ‘Yes, sir, and her mother.’

  ‘What does she do all day, then?’

  ‘God knows, sir.’

  Hammond was studying him again, examining him with an intensity which was almost unmannerly. Henry returned his gaze as calmly as he could. There was silence between them. When Hammond finally averted his eyes, he seemed pensive and depressed.

  ‘I have a sister who is the age of Mona, sir. She is pretty.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘Yes, sir, she is the youngest by far. She is the light of all our lives, sir.’

  ‘Does Mona put her in your mind when you see her?’

  ‘My sister does not roam freely sir, she is a real treasure.’

  ‘Surely Mona is protected by her nanny and, indeed, her mother?’

  ‘I’m sure she is, sir.’

  Hammond cast his eyes down, looking troubled as though he wished to say something and was being prevented. He turned his head towards the window and remained still. The light caught half his face while half stayed in shadow; the room was quiet enough for Henry to hear his breathing. Neither of them moved or spoke.

  Henry appreciated that if anyone could see them now, if others were to stand in the doorway as he had done earlier, or manage to see in through the window, they would presume that something momentous had occurred between them, that their silence had merely arisen because so much had been
said. Suddenly, Hammond let out a quick breath and smiled at him softly and benignly before taking a tray from the table and leaving the room.

  HENRY FOUND himself that evening close to Lord Wolseley at supper and thus free, he thought, from Webster. One of the ladies beside him had read several of his books and was much exercised by their endings and by the idea of an American writing about English life.

  ‘You must find us quite blank compared to the Americans,’ she said. ‘Lord Warburton’s sisters in your novel, now they were quite blank. Now Isabel isn’t blank or Daisy Miller. If George Eliot had written Americans, she would have made them quite blank too.’ She clearly enjoyed the phrase ‘quite blank’ and placed it in several more of her comments.

  Webster, in the meantime, could not stop attempting to control the table. When he had teased all the women about what they could not, or would not, or might not wear at the ball, he turned his attention to the novelist.

  ‘Mr James, are you going to visit any of your Irish kinsmen while you are here?’

  ‘No, Mr Webster, I have no plans of any sort.’ He spoke coldly and firmly.

  ‘Why, Mr James, the roads, thanks to his lordship’s steady command of the forces, are safe from marauders. I’m sure her ladyship would put a carriage at your disposal.’

  ‘Mr Webster, I have no plans.’

  ‘What was the name of that place, Lady Wolseley? Bailieborough, that’s right, Bailieborough in County Cavan. It is where you will find the seat of the James family.’

  Henry noticed Lady Wolseley blushing and keeping her eyes from him. He looked at her and at no one else before turning to Lord Wolseley and speaking softly.

  ‘Mr Webster will not desist,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, a stretch in barracks might improve his general deportment,’ Lord Wolseley said.

  Webster did not hear this exchange but he saw it, and it seemed to irritate him that both men had smiled knowingly at each other.