The Year of the French

by Thomas Flanagan

  “Oh, that!” Moore smiled. “I am something of an expert upon scruples of conscience. I have no need to consult Mr. Hussey.” He shook his head impatiently. “Let us speak of something else. It is too pleasant an evening to waste.”

  But Treacy persisted. “Even if you had bribed him, if you had written what you do not believe . . .”

  “I despise bargaining,” Moore said. “And bargainers.”

  “Our Saviour did not,” Treacy said. “He bargained with the Father for our redemption.”

  “A blasphemous analogy,” Moore said. “Mr. Hussey would not welcome it.”

  How could he explain himself to someone like Treacy, a conventional man, rustic and pious? He did not attempt it. His integrity had been soiled by the soot of circumstance. History, society had existed for him as networks of power, intricate webs of cause and effect, weakness and strength, authority and subservience. But his mind, the power of his intellect, had held him free of those webs. Cool and deliberate, his thoughts dipped in preserving liquor of irony, he had tested, weighed, evaluated, judged. His independence had been vested in the freedom of his mind to move among possibilities, uncommitted. His thoughts were birds, circling the earth, swooping low and then darting up again. Browne had limed the nets, his very thoughts fluttered helpless in their folds. To save John he had given more than gold. He had sent his ideas to do Browne’s bidding. It was a fitting irony. His father would have approved and would have been delighted to see his affected pride brought low. Damn him.

  Treacy was right, of course. It was a scruple of conscience, but not in his Christian meaning of the term. If Moore was anything, he was an historian, or so he believed, and historians did not sell the truth to politicians, not for gold or power or the lives of brothers. This was Moore’s only piety, and history suggests that it was a mistaken one.

  In the event, of course, the Act of Union was passed in 1800, but Catholic Emancipation was not achieved for another thirty years, and by then Moore was dead. He had taken no further part in public affairs, although he was several times urged to accept a position of leadership in the Catholic Association. He published nothing, and it was generally believed that he was continuing his researches into the history of the French Revolution. In Mayo he was accounted a learned, indeed a profound scholar, but in London his very name was forgotten, save as the author of his short, early treatise on the Whigs.

  In 1805 he married, and the nature of the union prompted much comment and gossip in Mayo, for he married Sarah Browne, Dennis’s niece, who had returned to Ireland upon the dissolution of her scandalous relationship with Lord Galmoy, a notorious rake. Moore had met her three years earlier, when the business of his estate carried him to Woodlands, Browne’s house.

  It was a modest house, far smaller than Westport House, the residence of his brother. The brother was Lord Altamont no longer; with the passage of the Act of Union he had been created Marquis of Sligo, in partial recompense for Dennis’s services to the government. Dennis had been repaid in other ways as well: he was Member of Parliament in London now, and the most powerful man in Connaught. Among the peasants, his actions in ’ninety-eight had earned him a reputation as an ogre which would last long decades after his death, but this bothered him little. He had promised to pacify Mayo, and it was indeed at peace. The last of the hanged men had rotted beneath their overcoats of tar and they had been cut down from the gibbets. Songs were sung against him in shebeens, but he took no notice of these. In Ireland, power was seldom accompanied by popular approbation.

  The proportioning of Woodlands was clumsy. Stables and kennels stood close to it: their odours filled the air in the cramped courtyard, and droppings of horse and dog were smeared across the uneven cobbles. The sounds of men shouting drifted to Moore from the outbuildings, the good-humoured banter of grooms and stable boys.

  “We have the simple life here,” Browne said, welcoming him. “None of the brother’s music rooms and artificial lakes and Chinese wallpaper. Did you ever see the like of that wallpaper? Pagodas and Ming horsemen and the dear knows what else stuck upon the walls of Mayo.” He placed a hand upon Moore’s shoulder. “Come inside, man. Come inside.”

  “I am here only to discuss the grand jury assessments,” Moore said stiffly. “You understand that, do you not? I made it clear in my letter. It is good of you to receive me.”

  “To be sure,” Browne said. “To be sure. You are a sight for sore eyes. It has been years now.”

  The entrance hall was dark. Portraits hung upon the walls, dim and indistinct, white faces glimmering beneath varnish and dust.

  “Poor daubs they are,” Browne said. “Westport House has the good ones, of course. The old man and Peter after him and then the grandfather. These are the scruffs—cousins and the like. All but one. Take a look here, would you?” He led Moore to the portrait of a man in seventeenth-century military dress, florid colouring, high arched nose. “There he is in all his glory, Colonel John in his regimentals, ready to ride off with King James and bash a few Protestant skulls. Small wonder brother Sligo doesn’t want that one on his walls. Sure we were all Papists then—Moores and Brownes and Treacys.”

  “A resourceful-looking fellow,” Moore said.

  “Not a bad bit of canvas,” Browne said. “A London artist named Turville.”

  They settled down to their talk in Browne’s study, a small pleasant room, with a turf fire built against the chill of early evening. Bookshelves rose towards the ceiling along two walls. Tall double windows opened upon a meadow. Haze clung to the yellowing grass, a herd of black cattle grazed in the distance, beneath trees. One picture, bright against firelight: Westport House seen from a distant hill, with Clew Bay spread beyond it. A formal, awkward painting, as much chart as landscape, plantations and avenues laid out in meticulous detail.

  “By God, the lad who did that was determined to give value for money,” Browne said. “He would have stuck in every tree if he’d had room.”

  “It is a handsome house,” Moore said.

  “It is that,” Browne said. “And built to last. There is a great future in Westport, George. A great future. Killala and Ballina are played out. In five years’ time that port will be crowded with grain boats for England. Every grain of Connaught corn will be shipped from Westport. There is a great future for Connaught, thanks be to God. We will become England’s victuallers. England and Master Buonaparte are going to settle down to a long, long war and the farmers and the landlords of Ireland will find their breeches pockets stuffed with English pound notes.”

  “Don’t rely upon history,” Moore said. “A few years ago, when last we talked, Master Buonaparte was a defeated general, stranded in Egypt. Today he is master of France. Things change.”

  “Never fear,” Browne said. “I leave history in your keeping.”

  “About the jury assessments,” Moore said, and drew the papers from his pocket.

  It took them but an hour or so to conduct their business. Both men had a head for figures, and an instinct for detail. At last Browne threw his pen onto the desk, and stretched. “You will stay for dinner, will you not, George? Pheasant and baked ham and a gooseberry flan. I brought down the pheasant with my own gun.”

  “If I leave now,” Moore said, “I can reach Moore Hall before night. Another time, perhaps.”

  “No time like the present,” Browne said. “You are here now, and it has been a long time. Years. You will spend the night here, surely.”

  Why not, Moore thought. What does it matter? It is all over now, long past.

  “I have a pleasant surprise for you,” Browne said. “My niece is here. Sarah is here. She is staying with me. You knew her in London, did you not?”

  Moore remembered her. Slender. Black hair, brown eyes. The special friend of Dick Galmoy. Dishonoured. He had not known her well.

  “She will be better off here,” Browne said. “London is no place for an Irishwoman.”

  “I have always been fond of London,” Moore said. “A
civilised city.”

  “A fine city,” Browne said. “I am there for six months of the year now.” Dennis Browne, Member of Parliament for Mayo. “It is a man’s city. You must know about her. Herself and Galmoy.”

  “I don’t recall—” Moore began, evasively. Browne cut him short.

  “She is well rid of him. Well rid. They are a disgrace to Ireland, puppies like Galmoy.”

  “I did not know him well.”

  “To meet a decent Irish girl at a Castle ball and lure her off to England with him. It is an utter disgrace that he brought upon her and upon her parents. They are a disgrace to Ireland, men like Galmoy, wasting their money in London and gambling it away. The English laugh at them and why should they not? She is well rid of that fellow.”

  “I am sorry that I did not know her better,” Moore said. “She was a fine, clever girl, as I remember her.”

  “Clever, is it? Sure all the Brownes are clever, save for poor Sligo, and he has no need for it, thanks be to God. She is as clever as an egg is full of meat. You would swear to look at her that she had left Ireland for a convent. Ach, sure what family is there that does not have its one misfortune? Who would know that better than yourself?”

  Moore did not reply. He was embarrassed by the frankness with which Browne spoke of her. How old would she be now? Late twenties perhaps, or thirty. Not a late age in this country, but rumour would have placed a scar upon her. Clever she might be, but it had been folly to run off with Dick Galmoy.

  “What are you thinking?” Browne asked sharply.

  Moore smiled. “That I admire clever women.”

  Browne peered at him, the sharpness now in his eyes. “Take care not to admire them too fervently, George. It would be a great pity should anything disturb our friendship.”

  “Is that what we are?” Moore asked. “Friends?”

  Browne left him alone for an hour, before dinner, and he explored the demesne. It was a fine, clear evening, cool, with a faint wind crossing the fields. A ghost of Atlantic salt in the air stirred his memories. A path along the meadow led through to a stream crossed by a brief, humped bridge. Beyond lay a summer house. The stream was at the full and moved noisily beneath his feet as he stood upon the bridge. Perhaps she is in the summer house, he thought. Reading, or remembering London.

  She joined them in the small, dowdy dining room, frayed red Turkey carpet beneath their feet, gravy-coloured portraits on the wall, sat facing her uncle from an end of the olive-wood table. Moore had not remembered her clearly—slender, certainly, and brown-eyed, but the hair was not black at all but brown, worn unfashionably. Her throat was tall above a prim dress of blue velvet. She said little at dinner, but listened attentively to each man, turning watchful, quiet eyes towards him. She smiled often, a quick, half-smile which came and then vanished. Her teeth were very white but not straight.

  With fingers and pointed knife, Browne tore the wing from a pheasant. “This is most pleasant,” he said. “A Browne back home in Mayo where she belongs, and a friend to share a meal with us. We never see enough of you, George. No one does. You should take more part in the life of the county.”

  “Do you not hunt, Mr. Moore?” she asked. A coloured voice. Colours streaked with silver.

  “I write,” Moore said. “And I manage the estate myself. I am kept busy.”

  “His brother was the lad for the hunt,” Browne said. “George is a different fellow entirely.”

  “What is it that you write?” she asked.

  “History,” Moore said. “A kind of history. It has not been going well.”

  Browne spoke through a mouthful of meat. “History was washed up at his door a few years ago. He didn’t welcome it.”

  “I never read histories,” she said. “Poetry and novels. More novels than are good for me. But not histories. All those sorrows and dates.”

  “Mine will be as dry as any of them,” Moore said. “If I ever finish it.”

  She picked up her wineglass. Moore remembered where he had seen her last. At Holland House. She was different then, the voice harsh and eager. It had been a large party. But she was not a woman one would easily forget. Not now.

  “You have come home at a sorry time, Miss Browne.”

  “Sorry?” she repeated. “I am not certain of your meaning.”

  “The county has been disturbed. There has been much suffering.”

  “It is safe now,” Browne said. “And it will be prosperous soon. I was telling you that, George.” He picked up his own glass. “Pay no attention to that, Sarah.”

  “Pay no attention to an historian? I am certain that he would not like that, would you, Mr. Moore?”

  “Your kinsman’s knowledge of Mayo is more intimate than my own,” Moore said. “He has made a name for himself in Mayo.”

  She caught the thread of his irony. “Have you, Dennis? What sort of name have you made?”

  “Whatever name is given to me. I have done more than that, and George knows it. I have restored peace here.”

  “Pacem appellant,” Moore said.

  “What can that mean, Mr. Moore?” she asked. “I have no Latin. No Latin and no history, I am an ignorant Mayo woman.”

  “ ‘They call it peace,’ ” Moore said.

  “Give her the rest of it,” Browne said angrily. “Solitudinem faciunt et pacem appellant. ‘They make a wilderness and they call it a peace.’ Very well so. But it is a wilderness we can live in.”

  “Those of us left alive,” Moore said.

  “I know nothing of this,” she said. “All this unhappiness.”

  “Your pardon,” Moore said. “Your kinsmen and I have lived through difficult days. Everyone in Mayo did. We had our differences. It is all past now. As he says, peace has been restored.”

  “And once at least we were in agreement,” Browne said. “Do you remember, George?”

  “Yes,” Moore said.

  Browne smiled at Sarah. “There is nothing suitable for a woman’s ears but talk of silk dresses and trinkets from the fair and hawthorn trees in flower.”

  “You have grown poetical,” she said.

  “The words are not mine,” Browne said. “They are from a song by a Killala schoolmaster. A song in Irish.”

  “A schoolmaster was hanged in ’ninety-eight,” Moore said.

  “All this unhappiness,” she said again. “There are always poets.”

  O Dennis Browne,

  If I did meet you.

  I’d shake your hand,

  But not to greet you,

  To have you taken

  And strung up quaking

  On a rope of hemp when

  I’d run you through.

  He awoke next morning with the thought of her filling his mind, as though she had left behind a perfume, discreet but erotic. Tendrils of memory, the movement of her arm as she raised the wineglass, the small hand which held it, the wide, dark eyes which knew more than the lips spoke. It was an emotion which had caught him unaware, and he felt disloyal towards his own melancholy. The woman Dick Galmoy had taken once to Holland House, a prize to be exhibited. Dick Galmoy’s wild Irish girl.

  He dressed, and then walked again along the meadow path to the small bridge. He crossed over it and went to the summer house. As he had expected, he found her there, and she was not surprised to see him. She put a slip of paper in the novel she had been reading, and placed the book on a wicker table by her chair. Then she rose to meet him.

  “You remembered who I was,” she said.

  “Once,” he said. “One evening. You looked different then.”

  “I was different then,” she said.

  They walked together along the path, the narrow, quick-moving stream beside them.

  “Are you pleased to be here again?” he asked. “In Mayo?”

  “Neither pleased nor displeased,” she said. “It is where I am. I was very excited on the boat, but now nothing seems familiar. I don’t like Dennis’s house, do you? I like Westport House.”

&nb
sp; “It is very grand,” he said. “A better house for a woman. Will you live there?”

  “I like the bay,” she said. “And the islands. I have a great fondness for the picturesque.”

  “And for novels.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am a foolish woman. Foolish and headstrong. It will be my downfall, sooner or later.”

  “You are not foolish at all,” he said. “Since last night I have been puzzled by you. You remind me of someone. You puzzle me.”

  “That is a personal remark to make upon slight acquaintance.”

  “But you are not offended,” he said.

  “How can you know that?”

  “You will stay here now?”

  “Where else can I go? I would not find London pleasant this season.”

  “I prefer London,” Moore said, deliberately misunderstanding her. “London or Paris. I remember Spain, as you remembered Mayo when you were in London. But I am settled here. I will not leave.”

  “You do not have the look of a man who is at home. You look unhappy.”

  They had come to the plantation. Beyond it, Browne’s house stood bare and stumpy.

  She stopped, and turned to face him. “Do you know why I came back? Don’t ask my brother: he will invent a story for you. Galmoy ran through the money, and then threw me over. He sent me packing. If he had not, I would be with him now.”

  “You are that attached, then?”

  She broke a branch from the tree and studied it. “I despised him,” she said. “After the first year. He is a witless creature, all bluster and fine looks. It was a tedious life for a woman situated as I was, with no company save that of men, and other women like myself.”

  “Like Lady Holland,” Moore said.

  “Like Lady Holland. Are you making sport of me?”

  “Not at all,” Moore said. “I will never make sport of you.”

  “Never? Not when you know me better?”

  “Especially then.”

  “Take care, Mr. Moore. I am not at all what you may have heard of me.”