“But I like those you’ve had. The Irish are the friendliest people I’ve ever met. Take Lord Warburton, for instance. I enjoyed him very much.”
“You saw him for ten minutes!” Lazarus protested, pushing back his hat.
“I liked what I saw. He seemed a perfect specimen of his kind.”
“And he’s not Irish at all,” Lazarus went on. “He’s English—quite a different breed. The Irish and the English! They are as unalike as any two brothers who detest each other. My dear cousin, you’d better not let our neighbors hear you confuse the two.”
Libby looked around the vast, quiet expanse of the broad Lough. “There’s little danger of that,” she said, smiling.
“Oh, the reeds have ears. Don’t you know your Greek myths?”
“Not really,” Libby said, blushing a little. “I’m not well educated. You’d be shocked by how little I know.”
“Nothing about you shocks me,” said Lazarus. “Everything delights me.”
“You’re too easily delighted. I was a mediocre student and stopped too soon. I do have nice handwriting,” she added. “But now, my education continues. Tell me the difference between the English and the Irish.”
Lazarus laughed. “My dear girl! It would take an encyclopedia.”
“Try,” she urged him.
He rubbed his chin. “I’m an outsider, you understand,” he said. “To both groups. I am, and forever will be, an American . . . and a Jew.”
“All the better,” Libby smiled. “My father was Christian, you know.”
“Yes, that was part of the falling out between our families,” said Lazarus. “Some argument over holidays. It’s a wonder the human race survives at all.” He drew his wet hand across his forehead.
“Are you hot?” she asked anxiously. “Is the sun too strong?” She had made him apply Coppertone before they set out, Lazarus laughing at the Coppertone Girl on the bottle. Libby herself used nothing but baby oil.
“The sun is never too strong in Northern Ireland. . . . Let me think.” He closed his eyes. His homely face crinkled in thought; his large, beaked nose seemed to grow larger. “The English are very polite. They are reliably kind. If you get lost in a London street, any one of them can produce a whole book of maps from some mysterious pocket and show you exactly where you need to go. But they won’t ever become your friend.”
“Never?” asked Libby.
“Not unless you marry in. Perhaps not even then. But an Irishman will shout at you to get the hell out of his way. He may shove you aside. He will tease and torment you, and make rude jokes, and then, if you need it, he’ll carry you on his back fifty miles, grumbling all the way.”
“It’s clear which you prefer.”
Lazarus dabbled his fingers in the lake. “We live here. Partly it’s the climate, you know. The doctors claimed it would be good for me, and by the time we found out otherwise, it was too late. We had already settled in, put down Irish roots. Daddy loves it here, and so do I. . . . And in all fairness, the English do have scones and clotted cream. We don’t.”
She pulled on the oars. “Why not?”
“My dear Libby, have you ever eaten an Irish breakfast? If we added scones and cream, we’d be dead before nightfall.” He lay back in the boat again, and said musingly, “But it takes a long time to be Irish.”
Libby laughed. “I would guess you’d be born into it. That’s how it works in America.”
Lazarus looked at her seriously. “You might guess it, but you’d be wrong. Irish children are as cruel and indifferent as any other children on earth. But by the time they reach, say, Margaret’s age”—Margaret was the name of a favorite kitchen maid, a bright young woman who had featured in many earnest conversations between Lazarus and Libby—“they become loving and kind, thoughtful, and generous to a fault. They become, in short, Irish. But it takes at least twenty years to happen.”
“Well, however long it takes”—Libby smiled—“I like them.”
“And you also like my father,” prompted Lazarus, “though he’s every inch an American.”
“I do,” she declared. “He’s the dearest of the dear.”
“I won’t argue with that,” said Lazarus. “And I think you like my mother too, despite her jagged edges.”
“I do, because—because—”
Lazarus smiled grimly. “We don’t always know why . . .”
“I do!” Libby retorted. “I pride myself on always knowing.” She glanced down at her hands, firmly grasping the oars. They were strong, small hands, with beautifully tapered fingers. She wore the gold ring that she had inherited from her mother, a red carnelian stone set into it. In the flashing sunlight it looked like a drop of blood. “I like your mother because she doesn’t expect anyone to like her. She doesn’t care whether we do or not.”
“So you love her out of perversity?” asked Lazarus. “Well, that bodes well for me. I take after my mother,” he said, closing his eyes.
“Not at all. You desperately want people to like you, and try your hardest to make them. You cavort and make jokes and do magic tricks till they stop and pet you.”
“Good Lord, how you see through me!” Lazarus cried, with mock dismay.
“But there are limits,” Libby added more soberly. “You don’t really let a person draw close. I don’t know what’s wrong with you exactly, but I think you’re a great fake.”
Lazarus gave a smile that was more of a grimace. “You mean you don’t think I’m ill? It’s handy to think so.”
“Oh no . . . no! I know you are very unwell.” She regretted her words immediately. Libby spoke her mind too freely—she had been told this more than once—but she hated the idea of causing injury. Her father had compared her once to a scalding light—she illuminated her object, he complained, but left one feeling exposed and helpless. She had never forgotten it. She tried to soften and dim down the lamp, but often failed. “I just meant that I don’t know what you really care for. I’m not sure you care for anything at all.”
“I care only for you, dear cousin,” said Lazarus, placing one hand over his heart.
“I’d like to believe even that.” She pointed an oar at him, dripping water into the boat. “You sharpen your wit on everything: your miserable life; religion; politics; philosophy . . . it’s all comic material for you. And you never do stop,” she added. “You never stop performing for an instant.”
“I keep a lively band playing in my antechamber, Libby.” He tapped his bony forehead. “It plays without ceasing. Very handy. One, it keeps the noise outside from reaching the inner apartments, and two, it makes the world think there’s always dancing within.” He danced his thin white fingers along the edge of the boat.
“I would like just once to enter the private apartment, as you put it.”
“No you wouldn’t.” He shook his head so hard a lank strand of white hair fell into his eyes from under the brim of his hat, like the ghost of a leaf. “It’s a dismal place. Trust me.”
Just then a bell sounded from the depths of the Gardencourt grounds. This sonorous outdoor bell was used only on rare occasions—to summon large numbers of guests to meals, or to signal urgency or danger. It had once been used to call residents to prayer in the now-unused private chapel. “Saved by the bell!” Lazarus laughingly exclaimed. “Now why on earth is Warburton using that thing?”
He sat up straighter in the boat and waved his arm at a distant fair-haired figure standing on the back lawn of the mansion.
“There’s your perfect specimen of an Englishman,” he told his cousin. “What good timing he has!”
“He’s almost too perfect.” Libby swung the boat gracefully around and headed dutifully for home.
“Heavens yes,” said Lazarus. “Ecce homo! Look at his white flannels.” He shook his head with admiration. “Not a speck of dirt on him, I’ll bet.”
“You mean all the English are like him?” asked Libby in a low voice. She was unsure how well sound carried.
“
Oh no. They’re not all like Lord Warburton. He’s so exactly the best copy he’s almost an original.”
Libby leaned forward to take a better look. The gentleman in question was striding toward them at an alarming pace. Seconds earlier he had looked like a toy soldier. Now they could make out the broad smile on his face. “Come along!” he called impatiently.
Lord Warburton paced by the bank, now larger than life. Suddenly, like some sort of water animal, he splashed in his boots into the Lough to help pull the small boat to shore. He did this in spite of all of Libby’s protests and despite Lazarus’s angry stream of jokes and taunts. He lifted Libby out of the boat as if she were a child, holding her around the waist and lifting her into the air, then setting her down on the grassy bank beyond the reeds. From no one else on earth would Libby have tolerated such behavior, but Lord Warburton was not anyone else on earth; it would have seemed petty not to accept his assistance, so cheerfully and matter-of-factly given.
Lazarus, scorning all help, flapped his hand and waded to shore, half stumbling and half swimming as he went. By the time he’d achieved dry land he was soaking wet, his trousers streaming with lake water.
“I’m heading in to get changed,” he called irritably over his shoulder, as he marched past his friend and his cousin toward Gardencourt. Libby gazed after him sympathetically, but Warburton just grinned, showing white teeth.
“I hope you’ve been keeping well?” said Lord Warburton, looking at his pretty companion.
“Yes, thank you,” said Libby. She still retained the sensation of having recently flown through the air in the arms of a nearly perfect stranger. Her canvas shoes were damp but she was otherwise dry. She wore a pair of pedal pushers and a striped T-shirt, clothing that felt woefully inadequate beside Lord Warburton’s cream-colored suit. He looked like something out of an ad—but an advertisement for something she had never yet seen. So this, she thought, this is Europe.
“I see you’ve been rowing your cousin about. Of course he doesn’t row—he’s far too lazy.”
Libby glanced after her cousin’s receding back. Lazarus could not have overheard, yet she lowered her voice. “He has good reason for what you call his laziness,” she said.
“Ah, Lazarus has a good excuse for everything!” Lord Warburton retorted with a laugh.
Lazarus stopped walking and turned. He called, “My excuse for not rowing is that my cousin does it so beautifully! She touches nothing that she doesn’t improve.” Then he opened the parlor door and disappeared inside.
Warburton regarded Libby more closely. His small blue eyes twinkled. “It makes one want to be touched, Miss Archer.”
Warburton stayed on for tea, and then supper, and finally declared himself willing to spend the night. This was a coup, as Lazarus confided to his mother, because Warburton was so extremely fond of his own house that he seldom ventured abroad unless forced to by business or duty. This was a well-known fact. The next day he extended his stay till the end of the weekend. Mrs. Sachs was pleased—it was a victory for Gardencourt. She had a secret fondness for the nobility, which she would sooner have died than admitted. She regarded her niece with new appreciation. Mr. Sachs was delighted, because Warburton kept his son lively. And Lazarus believed he was at last being a good host to his American cousin. He could have wished Libby a little less impressed by his English friend; he could have wished Warburton a little more circumspect in his admiration—but he chalked this up to his own bad character, the usual ill humor of an invalid.
“I can hardly expect to keep her all for myself,” he reminded himself. “I must be other-regarding, other-regarding, other-regarding.”
“What are you mumbling about?” Warburton asked him. “Have you taken up praying?”
“The greatest prayer is patience,” Lazarus replied.
Warburton had a quiet way of making himself the center of attention. He did it without bragging; in fact, he seldom said much in company. He acted much like the sun; he could not help shining, and he wasn’t responsible if others naturally orbited around him, soaking in his warmth. Even Mr. Sachs, who had lately been so ill, suddenly regained his spirits and his appetite. The cook, learning that Lord Warburton was their houseguest, became newly inspired, and Margaret, the housemaid, gawked at the big, handsome, healthy visitor, with his gold cufflinks and Dunhill embossed leather card case. Margaret, a “mere broth of a girl,” as she herself said, usually wore her hair up in curl papers under a cap, except once a week when her fellow took her to the movies. But with Lord Warburton visiting, Margaret carefully combed and styled her hair each day.
When the weather held fine they sat out of doors. In the evening, they retired to the spacious rooms within. Lord Warburton was warm in his praise of Gardencourt, though he reserved his highest praise for his own estate, Greyabbey, a few kilometers north of the Strangford Lough, near Newtonards.
“It’s the most beautiful place in the world,” he told Libby. “You must come see it.”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Sachs. “It’s an old ruin compared to Gardencourt.”
Libby stood close to Margaret, who smiled, shook her head, and confided in a low voice, “Oh, Greyabbey’s the finest house in County Down. The very finest, miss. I’ve always longed to have a peek inside.”
Libby turned at once. “We’ll come then, if we can bring Margaret,” she said.
“Oh no, miss!” declared Margaret, with horror.
“Just as you wish,” said Lord Warburton with a smile.
“Margaret is the only one who can keep my uncle comfortable when he is away from home,” said Libby. Then, flustered, she apologized to her aunt. “I’m sorry, I meant—”
“We all know what you mean,” returned her aunt, a bit stiffly.
“I hope you all will come,” said Warburton gallantly. “It’s a curious old place.”
“Has it got ghosts?” asked Libby.
“Oh, loads of them.”
“Do you come from a large family?” Libby asked Lord Warburton when they had a moment alone. She prided herself on wanting to learn something about everyone.
“About average,” he answered. “One younger brother in the church, and one older brother still in the army. Two sisters who live at home—our parents are gone. My mother died very young, and my father followed not long after. None of us is very clever, you know, Miss Archer, but we’re all perfectly pleasant. I hope you’ll come to know us well.”
“I don’t know if I will be in Ireland long enough to know anyone well,” said Libby. She felt uncomfortable. She was not directing the conversation as she’d wished.
“Are you planning to leave us so soon?” Lord Warburton did not disguise his disappointment. “Do you love America so much that you have to rush back to it?”
“I love my country pretty well,” said Libby. “I feel as if I know it better for having a little distance from it. All things considered, I think it is the best place on earth.”
Lord Warburton laughed, then sipped his lemonade to cover his laughter. “Most of your countrymen seem to feel that way,” he amended.
“I don’t know most of my countrymen,” she said. “I do like the idea of a democracy. And we don’t seem to have as many classes as you do here. I suppose you must have about fifty.”
“I don’t believe in the class system,” said Warburton. “All that is rubbish. I go in only for equality.”
“Easy to say when you own a good slice of the country,” observed Lazarus from across an open expanse of grass.
“I don’t own a good slice,” argued Warburton apologetically. “It’s a very small slice, really.” He held his palms close together to demonstrate. “We have a parliamentary government back home in England,” he said.
“Yes, so I’ve heard,” teased Libby. “I also think you have a king and queen?”
“Mostly for show,” said Warburton.
“And do you dine with them often?” she asked.
“Dine with them?” he echoed.
“Yes, the king and queen. Or don’t they go in for equality the same way you do?”
“Oh, I say, Miss Columbia.” He looked both dismayed and amused, and stood swirling the ice around in his drink, staring into the glass.
“He really has dined at Windsor, you know,” put in Lazarus wickedly. “Perhaps he can get you invited.”
“If only I’d known, I’d have brought my native costume,” said Libby.
Mr. Sachs retired very early. He hid his illness from the others as best he could—though the anxious eye of his son could not be fooled.
Half an hour later, Mrs. Sachs turned to Libby with a decisive nod. “It’s time to bid the gentlemen goodnight.” She had been sorting through her calling cards. Though not an especially sociable woman, she loved getting calling cards, and grumbled when she felt the pile was insufficiently high. In the isolated Ards, it was almost not worth the bother.
“Must I, Aunt?” pleaded Libby. “It’s not even dark yet. We’re having such a nice time. I’ll come up in an hour.”
“I can’t possibly wait that long,” said Mrs. Sachs, her voice sharp. She disliked anything that reminded others of her age. “It may be light out, but it’s past my bedtime.”
“You don’t need to wait up. Lazarus and I will tidy up here. We’ll close all the cupboard doors and turn out the lights, just as you like.”
“I’ll turn out the lights with you!” Lord Warburton exclaimed. He was standing with his back to the fireplace, his legs spread apart. “Please let me. Only promise that you won’t think of going to bed before midnight.”
Mrs. Sachs fixed her bright, critical eyes on him a moment, and then moved them coolly to her niece. “You can’t stay alone here with two men, Libby. You’re not in Rochester anymore.”
Libby rose at once, blushing. After a moment she exclaimed, “I wish I were!”
“Mother,” chided Lazarus. “Good Lord, I am her cousin. You might go easy on us.”
Beauty and Attention: A Novel Page 5
