Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  ‘Can’t you keep quiet?’ she said at last.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I haven’t said a word.’

  ‘You keep whistling. It’s getting on my nerves.’

  ‘My deepest apologies.’

  They drove on in silence. As they reached the coast a storm blew in off the sea, splattering the windscreen with hailstones. She thought he would stop but he drove on, peering through the little gap made by the wiper and rubbing the mist of their breath away with his glove. As the storm eased he went faster. She wondered if he was driving deliberately fast in order to impress her. If so, she didn’t care. He could kill them both if he liked.

  He glanced at her briefly. ‘Your father told me you’d had a bad time in Dublin, but he didn’t explain how.’

  ‘Good. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Fair enough. But I hope a few days down here will blow it away. It’s a beautiful part of the country.’

  ‘I do know that, Major Butler. I was born here.’

  ‘And you think I’m intruding, obviously.’ As they approached the rocky hilltop where they would catch their first glimpse of Killrath, he slowed the car and stopped. The hailstorm had just passed, and a dark indigo cloud covered the mountains inland. The house itself, still wet from the storm, sparkled in the pale evening sunlight. Andrew switched off the engine.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’

  ‘Just to enjoy the view for a second.’ He got out of the car, walked round to the front, leaned against the bonnet, and bent his head over his cupped hands to light a cigarette.

  ‘Damn you,’ Catherine muttered softly to herself. She wished she could drive but she had never learnt. She felt a fool just sitting there, waiting on his pleasure, her view obscured by the misty windscreen and his broad back leaning against the bonnet. What made it worse was that it was a view she had always loved herself. She got out of the car and walked a little way down the road, so that she could lean with her back against a rock out of the blustering wind.

  There was a moderate sea, and cloud shadows chased each other across it, turning the waves various shades from a deep midnight blue to a cold steel grey. Whitecaps were bursting quite far out, and a cluster of seagulls followed an intrepid fishing coracle as it made its way precariously inshore.

  ‘You’re a lucky girl, to inherit all this.’

  She looked round and saw with annoyance that he had walked down the road to join her. He leaned one arm against the rock, so that he could look at her and the view at the same time. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and the scent of the tobacco mingled not unpleasantly with that of the damp heather and spray.

  She said: ‘It would have gone to one of my brothers, if they had lived.’

  ‘Your father told me. They were brave men, but unlucky.’

  She turned on him angrily. ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘I was there, remember? Not with your brothers, but at the front. Most men were unlucky, Catherine. Millions of them.’

  ‘So why were you spared?’

  ‘Who knows?’ He took another drag of the cigarette. ‘All I know is I spent a lot of time thinking about Ardmore, which is a place not as grand as this, but prettier, as your brothers must have sat in their billets and remembered this view here.’

  It was not something she could argue about. ‘They wrote about it too,’ Catherine agreed after a while. ‘I used to send them photographs and news of what was happening here.’

  ‘My parents did that as well. Did I tell you, they both died while I was away?’ He flung the cigarette down on to the road, and watched the wind blow the last breath out of it on the gravel.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It was the first time she had thought about anyone else all day, apart from her own misery and Sean’s imprisonment. The death of Andrew Butler’s unknown parents seemed trivial in comparison to that; but she remembered the loss and loneliness she had felt at her three funerals: first her two brothers, then her mother, Maeve. No doubt he had felt like that. ‘Do you have any other family?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘So we’re matched, you and I. Sole inheritors of great estates. Even if mine’s just a pile of ashes in a park. Come on, you look cold.’

  He strode back to the car and started the engine. She followed, slowly. This is not going to be a stay in Killrath on my own, she thought. This man is going to invade every part of it.

  He appeared to be well in with the Fergusons, too. The son, David, met them at the house with a broad smile on his face and an assurance that dinner would be ready in an hour and Miss Catherine’s room aired as Major Butler had ordered, and Catherine had the odd sense that David paid more attention to Andrew than to her. This was more marked when the father appeared ten minutes later. Ever since she had realized she might inherit Killrath, Catherine had known that dealing with her father’s agent, Arthur Ferguson, would be her hardest trial. He had not forgotten her defiance over the evictions, nor did he appear to have changed his opinion that women had no understanding of the business of estate management. He greeted her with crusty politeness, as usual, but with Andrew he was almost cheerful. Catherine watched in pensive silence while the two men discussed the arrangements for winter feed. Andrew’s manner was easy, relaxed, controlled. It reminded her of something or someone that she couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was, the elusive memory made her distrust him deeply.

  She confronted him at dinner. They sat together at a polished table in the smaller family dining room. Oil lamps hissed in the corners of the room, and a fire crackled in the hearth. Occasional gusts of wind rattled the windows and sent draughts stirring the curtains. The butler came in to serve the soup.

  When they were alone Catherine said: ‘You seem to have made yourself at home here.’

  ‘It’s like Ardmore, only larger. Your father has chosen good staff.’ He sipped his soup. ‘Why are you so angry about it?’

  ‘Because it’s my home and you have no place in it.’

  It hurt. He had been fascinated by their sparring at their last meeting, and had been glad when her father had rung to say she would be coming down. He hoped she might feel the same. He had made some efforts to make her arrival pleasant. There was more to it for Andrew than the relief of boredom. He thought of her, quite coolly, as the first girl he had met who had both enough fire in her belly to satisfy him and enough money to rebuild Ardmore.

  He saw himself as breaking in a young filly. He must expect kicks; he must not allow her to get away with them. He said: ‘I don’t bite, you know. Besides, I don’t have a home of my own.’

  ‘That’s not my fault.’

  ‘No. But it’s no reason to start throwing your father’s guests out. Or have you seen the light, and decided to evict all your tenants when you’re mistress here?’

  Catherine flushed. There was a knowing grin on his face which enraged her. ‘Have you been talking to Ferguson about me?’

  ‘He did say you had a disagreement a few years ago, yes.’

  ‘Well, I hope he told you that he was wrong! It was Ferguson who wanted to evict the tenants then - I never shall! All that man ever thinks of is cattle, rents, and profit.’

  ‘Which have made people like you very rich. And me, I once thought. Don’t despise your servants, Catherine.’

  At this point the butler came in with two housemaids to clear the soup plates, carve the meat, lay out the warm dishes of vegetables, and pour the wine. Catherine waited until they had gone, letting her temper cool, seeking the most wounding phrase she could find.

  ‘I’m used to servants, I never despise them. What I do despise are self-appointed schoolteachers.’

  It was not a fortunate choice. He raised his glass to her and laughed, which was not the result she had hoped for at all.

  ‘I never had a sister, Miss Catherine, so perhaps I’m unused to the domestic life of the fair sex. But if I were your schoolteacher, I think I’d have bent you across my knee and given you a hearty spanking long ago.’

>   And you’d have liked it, too, he thought, as he saw the flush rise across her face and her eyes widen with anger. He remembered the chases he had had with Elsie in the Schwarzwald, and the rough, vicious, thrilling wrestling matches with which they had ended. Both of them had been covered with love bites and bruises everywhere. He had not known love could be like that; he had seldom thought of it any other way, afterwards. This girl was slimmer and more finely built than Elsie but from the graceful, assertive way she moved he had had little doubt that her body was hard and athletic as well as beautiful. I could see you lying below me in the pine needles, he thought, kicking and scratching like a hellcat. Except that it’s winter here and there’s only heather or sand. Or bogland. Perhaps it’ll have to be indoors. Could I manage it, in a week?

  He leaned forward and watched her over the table, cradling his wineglass in both hands. Catherine was shocked. She remembered the same fear and fascination she had felt for him when they had first met, only a week ago - could it be such a short time? This was a man quite unlike any others she knew. Self-contained, dreamy, with an arrogant self-confidence quite equal to her own, and something more, that frightened her. As though, when he looked at her, he did not see a person at all. Like a hawk looking down at a vole.

  She said: ‘I don’t think you know very much about women. If you tried to spank me I’d scratch your eyes out.’

  The burst of delighted laughter which greeted that remark unsettled her even more than before.

  Next day she suggested, rather as a way of putting him in his place, that they ride around the estate together. She wanted to take control, and show that both Killrath and the initiative belonged to her, which was the way she liked it.

  Also, he would give her something else to think about. His insolence last night had made her angry, but it was a welcome anger. It had stopped her thinking about herself and Sean for nearly an hour, and that could only be good.

  They rode along the clifftops to the west. Catherine rode Grainne, sitting side-saddle in a long brown skirt, slim black riding jacket and small round hat. Andrew was mounted on Simla, a big bay cob that her father used for hunting. The animal played up at first, and it became clear to her after a mile or so that Andrew was a competent horseman, no more. He was a little hard on the beast’s mouth, impatient and rough when it was not needed.

  ‘He’s lively,’ he shouted across to her. ‘Feeling his oats. Isn’t there some open ground where we can have a gallop, steam some of it off?’

  ‘In half a mile or so.’ First they had to go along a narrow path with only four or five yards between the stone wall on their right and the cliff-edge on their left. For most of the way the cliff was a steep grassy slope, going down a couple of hundred feet or more to an outcrop of black rocks just above the sea; but there was a passage of a hundred yards or so round an indented bay where the cliffs dropped sheer into the water. Catherine led the way on Grainne, who picked her steps daintily along the narrow path. Looking down to her left, Catherine could see gulls and kittiwakes launch themselves off ledges into space, floating effortlessly in the updraught over the grey waves below. Her parents had forbidden her to ride along here as a child, and even her brothers had refused to do it when she dared them. That was why she had brought Andrew. It was a place that tested the nerves of both horse and rider; there was no room for fear or mistakes.

  Catherine had always enjoyed heights, and she had absolute confidence in Grainne.

  When she was halfway round the bay she reined the mare in, and glanced back over her shoulder. Simla was about fifteen yards behind, plodding along steadily, lifting his head with a jerk and snorting every now and then as though aware of the danger. Andrew was talking to him and the horse had one ear back to listen, the other cocked forward towards Catherine and Grainne.

  A black-backed gull swooped down between them, soaring sideways on the wind that rushed up over the cliff. As it neared Simla it screamed loudly, and bent its three-foot wings to sweep upwards within a foot of the horse’s head. The cob checked, snorted, and tossed its head from side to side to try to see where the bird had gone. Andrew dragged at its mouth sharply and kicked it forward. Alarmed, Simla broke into a trot. Catherine could see that in a few seconds he would be up with Grainne on the narrow path, and there was no room to pass.

  She nudged the mare forward into a quiet walk. Even she had never trotted along here and it seemed a mad thing to do. She heard a snort and a sharp curse from behind her, and felt the hunter nudge her horse’s rump. She looked round quickly. Andrew was holding Simla’s head in hard, and the animal was straining, its eyes white, its ears sharply back.

  Andrew yelled: ‘Go ahead, can’t you? He wants to trot - the bird’s spooked him.’

  Catherine ignored him. A few yards ahead the gap between the stone wall and the cliff edge was at its narrowest, less than two yards wide. Grainne picked her way daintily towards it, refusing to be flustered by the fuss behind her. Catherine knew that Grainne could see off most of the other horses when they were out together in the field; it was unlikely that Simla would have the nerve to try to push his way past her.

  And if Andrew Butler did fall off the cliff because he was a bad horseman, that would be very unfortunate. A great waste of a good horse.

  They reached the narrow place and Grainne stepped quietly through it. There was a snort and a clatter behind. Catherine glanced back over her shoulder. Andrew had reined Simla in and was trying to force him to stand. The horse danced nervously and sidewalked in a half-circle. Catherine had the impression that Andrew’s face was paler than usual.

  She walked Grainne on to the far side of the bay, where the grass at the clifftop widened. Then she turned the mare and waited until the other two came up to her. She smiled and pointed.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You can see where we were from here. Dramatic, isn’t it?’

  The narrow section was on an overhang, and the cliff edge went down quite vertically beneath it for fifty feet, then sloped inwards. At the bottom, about two hundred feet below, a wave surged forward and burst over a line of jagged black rocks.

  ‘We call them the Devil’s Teeth,’ she said. ‘They say the Vikings used to throw monks down on to them, years ago.’

  Andrew shouted: ‘Why the hell didn’t you trot when I said?’

  She smiled, as though she had forgotten it, and said: ‘It’s dangerous. You need to keep the horses calm in a place like that. Come on. Didn’t you want a gallop?’

  She nudged Grainne into a trot, put her straight at the stone wall, and leapt neatly over. On the far side was a field grazed more or less smooth by sheep. She cantered down it, leapt the gate at the bottom, and crossed several more small, rocky, stonewalled fields in the same way. She reined in at the edge of a small lake, dismounted, and sat on a rock, holding the reins loosely in her hand so that the mare could graze.

  Andrew came up a few minutes later. Simla was sweating and foaming slightly at the mouth.

  She watched him critically as he dismounted. Perhaps there’ll be a little less arrogance now, she thought.

  She asked: ‘Did you enjoy that?’

  At first he did not answer. She had unsettled him and he was not used to that. He walked down to the edge of the lake, picked up a stone and skimmed it across the water. Then he sat down on a rock, took out a cigarette and lit it. As he exhaled the first breath, he said: ‘Do you always ride like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like - someone who’s afraid of nothing.’

  ‘You don’t have to be afraid if you trust the horse. I’ve had Grainne since she was a filly. Why? Did Simla scare you?’

  ‘A little. He hasn’t got any wings, as far as I can see.’

  She laughed. And that was progress, he thought. There was no fear in the laugh, it was a shared thing. He didn’t want a girl who was afraid of him all the time. After last night’s conversation he had wondered if he might have made her too nervous; after this morning’s ride he wondered if she
would ever be afraid of him again. Elsie had been afraid of him, a little, he remembered. That had added spice to it - the knowledge that he could do what he wanted, that in the end she would always submit. But too much fear would have made her a quivering jelly, like those girls in the brothels. No fight, no fun at all.

  For Catherine, the laugh was a relief too. She had been so bound up in herself, she had not thought she ever would find anything funny again. But the exercise, the pleasure she got from feeling Grainne so perfectly at one with her, had released her tension more than anything that could have happened in Dublin. And now she had cut the man down to size a bit, he seemed more human.

  A storm was darkening the sky a mile or so out to sea. Catherine said: ‘Since we’re here, would you like to see the family Ferguson wanted to evict?’

  Andrew shrugged. ‘Why - are they paragons of peasant virtue?’

  ‘Hardly. That’s the whole point.’

  As they rode round the side of the mountain and down a narrow lane, the rain caught up with them. At first it was a thin drizzle, sweeping out of the west under a gloomy sky. Then there was a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder out at sea.

  The rebuilt cottage was much as Catherine remembered it. Rough stone walls, with moss and plants clinging to them on the south and west; thatch that needed renewing, muddy footpaths through a garden full of stalky cabbages and undug rows of potatoes. A thin line of peat smoke came from the chimney, and there was a cow and a donkey in one field. Two young men, about fourteen and sixteen, were digging in the other.

  ‘Hello, Brian,’ Catherine called out. ‘Is your mother home?’

  ‘Sure, and where else in the world would she be?’

  A thin, dirty, dark-haired woman of about fifty came to the door of the house, a scowl on her face, her children lurking in the background. When she saw who it was she wiped her face with the back of her hand, and the scowl changed into a grimace which might have been meant as a smile. ‘Is it yourself back again among us then, Miss Catherine?’

  ‘I am that, Josie.’