by Sara Seale
“No ... no ...” she said in a puzzled little voice, “I couldn’t do that, could I? What must I do? You’ve always told me what to do.”
“I’ve told you now. You must go to sleep, and in the morning you’re going to start to get well. Do you understand?”
“Yes ... in the morning ... You look different. What is it?”
“You’ve got me out of bed, you graceless child.”
“Oh, poor Mark. Yes, your hair’s all ruffled. I’ve never seen you untidy before. It’s nice.”
She closed her eyes and her breathing seemed easier. There was a little silence, while the nurse, on the other side of the bed, watched her intently. The heavy lashes lifted with an effort.
“Will you shake my snowstorm for me?” she asked drowsily.
Mark looked inquiringly at the nurse, who handed him the glass paperweight. He held it upside down in the light from the lamp and the miniature snowflakes whirled and settled with twinkling frostiness.
Clancy watched it solemnly.
“I got it that day with Kilmallin,” she whispered. “The day we went roystering together. We never went again, but I have you now, Mark, haven’t I?”
“You have me now.” He handed the little globe back to the nurse.
“Lord Protector ... it’s rather a comforting title, really. I think I’ll go to sleep now...”
She slid a hand into his, and with a soft little sigh of release, fell into a deep, natural sleep.
All night he sat beside her, her hand in his. Doctor Boyle came, but she did not waken, and towards the morning the wind dropped, and only the rain, pattering gently against the windows, disturbed the silence of the room.
“She’ll do,” whispered the doctor, carefully releasing Clancy’s hand from Mark’s. “Go and get some sleep, my dear chap. You look all in, but I think you’ve done the trick.”
From that time she began to get better. The household settled back into its familiar routine and Conn left Slievaun for good and started work in Dublin. Doctor Boyle’s visits grew less frequent, and there came a time when the nurse left for another case, and Agnes took over in triumph.
Small events marked Clancy’s recovery; the day Mark carried her into the schoolroom for the first time to lie on the old sofa by the fire for an hour or two, the day she walked there herself, his arm supporting her, the first day downstairs, the first day out of doors. With the resilience of youth she picked up very quickly, and although she was too thin and easily tired, by the middle of February Doctor Boyle pronounced himself satisfied.
“And, my girl, it’s entirely due to that tutor of yours that you’ve got well,” he told her. “He pulled you through your bad times and you should be very grateful.”
Mark often wondered how much she remembered of that night, or, indeed, of any of their intimate little exchanges. She never alluded to anything which had been said between them, and he found it comparatively easy to slip back into the old relationship. But she continued to cling to his companionship, and seemed readier to obey the doctor’s injunctions, when they were reinforced by Mark’s own, and she was eager to start work again as soon as he would let her.
Conn wrote from Dublin that he had made a good start and did not find office work at all bad. After the first week or so he had made his headquarters at his future in-laws’ house, and Aunt Kate seemed quite pleased to have him there.
“It’s funny, isn’t it,” said Clancy, “to think of Conn settled in a city and not missing Slievaun at all?”
“Yes,” Mark agreed, thinking of Conn in his worn farm clothes, his red hair in an untidy crest, careless, indolent, as only Irish country folk can be. “Yes, it’s strange, Clancy, but perhaps it will work out better for him in the end.” She looked at him with that accusing honesty which is sometimes seen in the eyes of young children.
“You don’t really think that,” she said. “I remember you saying that day in the south pasture that it wasn’t a good thing to deny one’s calling.”
He looked at her gravely.
“That applies to me as well as to Conn,” he told her.
“Teaching?”
“Yes, teaching. When I first came here I was very undecided what I wanted to do with my life. I felt I needed a change of job, and I took your father’s offer as a kind of marking time, but now I’ve decided.”
She looked up at him inquiringly.
“To go back to teaching?”
“Yes.”
“I always knew you would. You’re a stronger person than Conn, Mark. Where will you go?”
“A friend of mine, a man called George Bishop, has a preparatory school in Devon. He’s always wanted me to come into partnership with him. I’ve written to tell him I will.”
Her eyes widened.
“When?”
“At the end of the summer. The school year starts then.”
She was silent for a long time, then she said;
“That gives us six months. Mark, what will become of me when you go?”
He did not know how to answer her. Many times, in the privacy of the tower room, he had wondered the same thing, and the weight of his responsibility had lain heavy upon him.
“You’ll try to remember what I’ve taught you and be a credit to the house of Kilmallin,” he said, trying to speak lightly.
“That sounds awfully pompous and like one of the governesses,” she said.
He smiled a little wryly.
“Well, I am a kind of governess,” he replied evasively. Her answering smile had a tender maturity.
“No,” she said softly, “you’re much more. The whole house depends on you, and I—”
“Yes? What about you, Clancy?”
“I will be lost entirely without you,” she said simply.
He tried again to talk to Kevin about her future, but he was irritable and impatient, and disinclined to listen seriously.
“Why should you fret yourself?” he demanded. “With Brian away at school, the girl will be a companion for me. She’s come on a lot since you took her in hand.
Mark regarded him gravely.
“If I really thought, Kilmallin, you would take a personal interest in her, I’d feel happier,” he said.
“Can I help it if my affections are with the boy? asked Kilmallin peevishly. “I tell you, Mark, I’m disappointed in both my children. Brian could have had anything he wanted of me, but he’s too scared to ask a favour, and Clancy—well, Clancy should have been my son. She would have understood me.”
“Brian will be very different away from Agnes and living a normal boy’s life,” Mark said quietly. “I think you’ll have your son yet, Kilmallin. To me it’s tragic that you shouldn’t want a daughter.”
Once he tried talking to Aunt Bea, but she disclaimed all responsibility for the children’s future.
“There’s time enough yet—so many things can happen in a few months.” Her pale eyes were suddenly alert and very shrewd. “I think the remedy is probably in your own hands,” she added, and trailed vaguely out of the room.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SPRING came gently to Galway that year. The gales and storms of the winter seemed to have blown themselves out, and March slipped into April o quietly that it seemed as though spring had come in the night.
With the milder weather Clancy grew strong again. She and Mark, and sometimes Brian, accompanied Kevin to Duneen on market days. There was new life everywhere. Lambs played among the hills and in the south pasture where Conn’s yearlings had been, cows and their calves lay in the fresh spring grass. The new owners of Slievaun had settled in, and Aunt Bea had called, but Clancy would not go.
Towards the end of April, Conn and Clodagh were married. They all went to Dublin for the wedding, and it was a gay affair, with Clodagh looking prettier than ever, and Conn almost unrecognizable in morning-coat and striped trousers, with his red hair slicked down and dark with brilliantine.
“Oh, Conn!” said Clancy, laughing, “how you’ve changed! You’d
never go squelching through the bog now, looking for snipe!”
But her cousin she kissed with great care so as not to disarrange her make-up, and wished her happiness with much affection.
It was the first family reunion for years, and Kevin and Aunt Kate forgot their differences and behaved admirably at the reception. Aunt Bea, pink with pleasure, renewed acquaintance with long-forgotten members of the family, and Mark had some difficulty in restraining Brian from eating too much and making himself sick.
He watched Clancy a little anxiously at first, thinking the occasion might be a strain for her, but she seemed gay and undisturbed, wearing the becoming new clothes her aunt had sent specially from Dublin, with an air, the champagne giving bright colour to her pale little face, and he realized that, for her, Conn had been lost long ago when he had sold Slievaun.
Before they went back to Kilmallin, Kate Desmond had a talk with Mark.
“My brother is looking ill,” she said. “I was quite shocked when I saw him at the reception. Has he had any more attacks?”
“Not that I know of,” Mark said cautiously, “but he’s drinking far too much, I’m afraid, for the good of his health. We can’t stop him.”
“So bad for the children,” Mrs. Desmond said, and added sharply: “Clancy’s matured a lot since her illness.”
“Yes, she’s growing up.”
“I hear you practically pulled her through.”
“Well, hardly that. She had excellent nursing.”
“H’m, it’s not what I heard. When do you go back to England?”
“About August, I should think.”
“H’m,” she said again, “pity.”
Mark worked very little with Clancy now. He was putting in as much time as possible with Brian, bringing him up to public-school standard, and Clancy missed the familiar mornings in the schoolroom with Mark’s clipped English voice calling them to order.
“Are you fed up with teaching me?” she asked him one afternoon when they had gone to Grania’s Cave to look for the coloured quartz which was sometimes to be found in the hills.
He glanced down at her, smiling.
“Of course not. Why do you ask?”
“Because you never give me regular work now, I’m not learning anything.”
“I’ve taught you all I can,” he told her. “You’re too old for schoolroom routine now. I must concentrate on Brian for the little time we have left.”
For the little time we have left ... The words struck a chill at her heart.
“You should teach me all you can before—before you have to go,” she said.
He looked at her curiously.
“Why, do you think I’m neglecting you, Clancy?
She turned to him passionately.
“Yes, yes, I do. I never see you now.”
They were sitting in the heather, just outside the entrance to the cave, and the May sunshine was warm on their faces. He pulled her into the circle of his arm.
“Oh, Clancy.” he laughed. “You see me at meals and most afternoons. There was a time, you know, when your main idea was to avoid my company.”
She leant against his shoulder, aware that she was being childish, and experienced an inexplicable desire to weep.
“What’s got into you?” he asked, giving her a little shake.
“I don’t know. The spring is much sadder than autumn, I think.”
His voice was gentle.
“Yes, sometimes I think it is. But it’s almost summer, you know.”
“Almost summer,” she said, “and you’ll be gone.”
He placed a hand under her chin, turning her face up to his, and saw she was nearly in tears.
“Why, Clancy,” he said, “you mustn’t mind like this.”
“I do. I do mind,” she said, and blinked hard. “That time I was ill, Mark, you said you’d never leave me as long as I needed you. Well, I do need you. I need you badly.”
His expression altered.
“I’ve often wondered how much you remembered about that,” he said. “Do you remember anything else?”
It was very quiet and very solitary up there in the hills. A lark rose, singing, into the clear air, and Clancy watched it for a moment in silence.
“Yes,” she said, then, “I remember you saying that you wanted me. You wanted me so much, you said, that if I didn’t get well you would leave here because you couldn’t bear it without me. You did say that, didn’t you?”
His face was impassive as he answered her.
“Yes, I did say that.”
“Didn’t you mean it? Was it just because I was ill?”
He was silent for a long moment, looking away over her dark head to the waters of Loch Sidhe. The brilliant green of the bog patches was a splash of lovely colour in the folds of the moor and the lark still sang with piercing sweetness, a tiny speck, now, in the tender spring sky.
“Clancy,” he said, with slight hesitation, “in moments of crisis, one sometimes says things that one wouldn’t on a normal occasion.”
She drew away from him.
“Then you didn’t mean it.”
“No, I don’t mean to convey that. It’s only that—well, sometimes certain things are best forgotten for a little while.”
He knew he was being clumsy. She did not understand an oblique approach, but she was not ready, he thought, to accept or reject a change in their old relationship, and he was not ready to make that change. That the change was already there, he was perhaps less aware than she.
She got up abruptly and went into the cave. He did not follow her, and presently she came back, holding in the palm of her hand a small lump of amethyst quartz.
“Look,” she said. “Polished up, that will be very pretty. Brian will like it—he hasn’t got any amethyst ones.”
There was colour in her cheeks and she kept her eyes steadily on the piece of quartz.
“Yes, it’s pretty,” he said absently. “Clancy, I don’t want you to misunderstand me.”
She still did not raise her eyes.
“Why should I misunderstand you?” she replied.
“My position is a little difficult. You’re still my pupil, you see.”
“Of course,” she said. ‘Will you put this in your pocket for Brian, please? I think we should be going home now.”
In the weeks which followed, he realized that he had bungled that incident badly, for she politely, and with a dignity he had not before suspected, withdrew herself from him. She performed such tasks as he set her without question or argument, but she no longer came to the tower room to talk, or to discuss an essay, and except for arranged expeditions or walks which included Brian, she went off on her own occasions and avoided being alone with him.
It was best, he thought at first, to let her alone, but as the weeks went by and she still withheld her confidence, he made efforts to re-establish the old companionship. June was a lovely month, with warm, cloudless days which held promise of a long, settled summer. There were race meetings, and bathing picnics to Kinross Sands and lobster teas at Mother Brady’s, and even Agnes could no longer protest at Brian’s inclusion in his sister’s pursuits, for he was strong now, and had, for the most part, forgotten to think about his health. Mark found that if Clancy wished to avoid any plan which excluded her brother it was perfectly easy for her to do so, and in the evenings when they sat out on the terrace with their coffee, there was always Aunt. Bea with her knitting making desultory conversation until she would announce that it was too cold for Clancy to sit there any longer without a coat and they would both go into the house.
To Mark it was a difficult period altogether. His own future plans were now cut and dried, but the completion of his partnership in George Bishop’s school left him with a feeling of finality. His year of indecision was over, but it brought him no present ease of mind. He had become too deeply involved with the household at Kilmallin to contemplate leaving them without a sense of loss; and there was Clancy.
He watche
d her, a little puzzled, and, at times, a little sad. She was growing up fast. Even her face had a new maturity and, on rare occasions, an odd, fleeting beauty. He thought that she was not very happy, and he wondered if this estrangement which she had forced upon both of them irked her as it did him.
One evening, they were sitting, as usual on the terrace, their coffee finished, and the light already beginning to fade from the hills, when Aunt Bea said unexpectedly:
“We shall miss you very much when you go, Mark. I hope you will come back and visit us.”
Clancy moved restlessly, and Mark said:
“I shall miss you all, too. I will surely come back if you want me.” He looked at Clancy as he spoke, but she made no comment.
“Kevin will miss you, too,” Aunt Bea remarked, knitting without a pause, and sighed.
They fell silent, thinking of Kevin, shut away in his study, as he was most evenings now, and looking, at last, his full age.
“Clodagh writes that she and Conn are very comfortably settled in their new house,” said Aunt Bea, not liking these sudden silences which had seemed so marked of late. “I must say that Conn is making a better showing at his job than I thought he would. My brother-in-law seems quite pleased with him. Clancy, don’t fidget, dear.”
“Are you cold?” asked Mark.
“No,” she replied.
Aunt Bea said with one of her rare flashes of humour:
“If you had been a governess instead of a tutor, Mark, you would have seen to it that the child’s idle moments were occupied with sewing or knitting.”
Mark smiled but did not reply, and Clancy said:
“I think I shall go and stay with Conn and Clodagh soon. They’ve asked me.”
“Do, dear,” said her aunt, nodding her head approvingly. “It would do you good.”
Mark said nothing He wondered if this idea was born of her desire to avoid him, but the fact that she contemplated such a thing at all must mean that she could meet Conn again without pain.
Aunt Bea put her knitting away and collected her trailing shawls.
“Well, I think I’m going in. You had better come too, Clancy. The dew is falling.”
