Three
I gentled the battered M.G. to a halt; my hands fell from the wheel, my shoulders eased themselves into the curve of the bucket seat. The top was down; I sat and listened to the quiet of the countryside, the absence of noise that is a sound in itself. Then I began to hear the beat of my own heart, a pounding that was no part of the quiet. Ahead lay Cloncath, the town of the Sheridans. It had been easy to find them. Lady Maude Sheridan was listed in the directory that served the whole of Ireland, with the town address of Cloncath; and in Cloncath also was the Sheridan Glassworks.
It was Monday afternoon, and now, here in Ireland, with Cloncath hardly three miles away, the resolution of that Sunday morning decision in London had seeped from me. I looked down at the bread and cheese and the bottle of Guinness on the seat beside me, and knew that I had bought them not because I wanted to picnic, but because to stop along the way would be a postponement of the time when I had to translate impulse into purpose. Until this moment the fact of the journey had sustained and distracted me; I had enjoyed the sense of independence, moving in my own way instead of Claude’s direction. Now the momentum had run itself out, and I had to deal with what I had chosen to put ahead of me, as well as what I had left behind. The telegram sent from Dublin that morning would probably bewilder Mary, but at least reassure her that something was being done about the Culloden Cup; the telegram to Claude would infuriate him. Of course I had lost the part in the Peter Latch film, the walk-on part for the clothes-horse; I had earned Claude’s wrath, both for missing my chance and for daring to disobey when everyone knew that Claude’s models always did as they were told; I might have caused a mild annoyance to Peter Latch himself because he would have to find someone else for the part, and certainly he would not ask for my services again. I had done the unforgivable by offering a snub to that world of agents and directors and starmakers. And for what? An impulse born in the small hours of the morning, fattened on coffee and cigarettes and fatigue, given weight by the discovery of a family that was my own, and a man who had said I was needed. But here I was near to the end of my doubtful journey, and if I had to say in words why I had come, I could not have found them.
For some miles the road had followed a stream, swift-running, steeply banked, flowing towards Cloncath and the sea. Where I had stopped the car the road widened a little to give a sweep in to a stone bridge. The bridge led to tall iron gates, breaking the line of the high stone wall which had marched beside the stream for the last mile or so, and which stretched ahead and out of sight on the Cloncath road; next to the gates was a lattice-windowed lodge, one of its walls formed by the estate wall itself, its small garden a tide of purple and yellow iris. From the gates an avenue ran straight and wide between two lines of oaks, budding with the new green of spring; the avenue narrowed to nothing in the distance, without sign of a house. Sleek cattle grazed the land on either side. The oaks were old, like the ivy which clung to the lodge and clambered on and embraced the walls. It was a scene of eighteenth-century peace and beauty disfigured by the ugly practicality of the heavy wooden barriers that guarded the road side of the stream, and by the serpentine coil of chain and padlock on the closed iron gates. The bridge, whose pillars bore a weather-worn crest, had given way to the force of the stream in flood ‒ fairly recently, I guessed, from the absence of weeds and moss on the great blocks of stone its collapse had hurled into the bed of the stream; white water swirled and thrust against them now. I gathered up my raincoat and lunch packages from the car, and walked a little downstream, seeking a place away from the turbulence of the water, away, from the windows of the lodge. Around the next bend a new wooden footbridge had been thrown across the stream; it was marked by muddy footprints and many bicycle tracks. I crossed it and walked downstream on the other bank where the high wall continued to follow the curve of the stream; where it grew broader and the banks gentler, I spread my raincoat.
It was, I supposed, one of the thousands of trout streams of Ireland that one heard about ‒ clear, swift-running, deeper than I had expected, with odd pools of stillness formed by its bends and the jutting brown boulders. It was stunningly cold to the touch, but when I cupped my hands and drank, I had never tasted water like it, with a zest and a lift to it, like a champagne. After that I didn’t need the Guinness, but I drank it, anyhow, to give myself courage. Then I lay back on the raincoat and lit a cigarette. Everything was peaceful; the sound of the water on the stones was gentle, calming, a murmur of no hurry and endless time. Time was what I, momentarily, had seemed to have left behind; time was the rush of the week before, the rush to get my jobs done, to be ready and gone to Spain, time was the night without sleep over Blanche’s papers, the sudden, hurried drive to Liverpool to catch the Dublin ferry. Time was the tiredness and tension that now began to ease itself from my limbs and brain; I felt rocked and lulled in the cavern of the stream and the arch of the spring green leaves above my head, and beyond that, the softness of the Irish sky.
‘Lotti …!’
Probably I heard the first cry as part of a dream, for I seemed to hear it twice. ‘Lotti …!’ I sat up, pulling myself with difficulty out of sleep. It had been a sound of shocking intensity and pain, and it had come from along the bank near the footbridge; the trees hung low, and for a second or two I didn’t see the figure of the man whose brownish tweed suit seemed to blur against the mossy stone. But when he began to move towards me, I saw two things ‒ that he was not young, and that the tweed was the only thing about him that suggested a countryman; he moved awkwardly along the bank, less, I thought, because of the stick on which he leaned, than because he would be more at home on city pavements. He was a short, heavy-set man whose face was screwed up in the effort to keep his footing; distinctive about him was his thatch of iron-grey hair, beautifully barbered, but worn more than usually long; the hand gripping the silver-tipped stick was pudgy and white. For the first time it occurred to me that this side of the stream might be private property; I got to my feet and prepared to explain myself.
But he had halted a little distance away, gesturing vaguely and erratically with his stick; his thick body seemed to sway, and he uttered a word or two that I didn’t understand. Then he moved, bent, as if he had been struck and wounded, to where an outcropping of rock on the bank offered a level surface for him to sit He lowered himself carefully, his hands clasped together over the head of the cane; his face was grey, and I could see the perspiration on his forehead and upper lip. I came close; momentarily he closed his eyes, clenching the cane as if to win back control. It was the face and posture of a man in a kind of agony.
‘Can I … can I help you?’
He shook his head, but did not speak. His lids still were lowered.
‘Could I . , . get you some water? There’s that cottage back there …’
Again he shook his head. ‘No … no, thank you. It is not necessary.’ He had opened his eyes, but the tone was weak. He took long breaths now, and gradually the fierce grip of the cane began to relax, to slacken. I waited, wanting to run to the lodge I had passed, but afraid to leave him.
I bent over him, and he seemed aware of my concern, because he raised his head to look at me, and tried to erase the expression of anguish that still lingered.
‘I am sorry,’ he said. When he let go of the cane to take the handkerchief from his breast pocket I saw that his hand trembled. ‘I am sorry,’ he said again. He was dabbing his face now, and some colour was returning.
‘Are you sure I can’t do something? If it’s all right to leave you now I could go to the cottage …’
He shook his head. ‘There’s no one there. And no help is necessary.’ His English was excellent, but his accent belonged to middle Europe. ‘You are kind … I am sorry if I frightened you. You were asleep … yes?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I thought ‒ for a moment I thought you were someone … The hair ‒ for an instant it looked … Not possible, of course. Foolish of me.’ The remnant of pain
was still in his tone, the plaintive hope. I warmed to this stricken little man and wished that whoever it was he had called to might have been there in my place, or that I could offer some substitute. There had been such longing in that cry, such need released in that brief explosion of hope, and now smothered under this blanket of polite disclaimers. I wanted to touch his shoulder and tell him to rest; that I would stay with him for whatever comfort my presence offered. Without the words, though, he seemed to know it.
‘You are kind,’ he said again, and this time it wasn’t for the sake of politeness.
‘I’m sorry, though, that my being here startled you, I hope I’m not trespassing. I didn’t think about it ‒ and there were no signs about its being private property. Should I have stayed on the road side?’
He shook his head, and his hand waved off the notion. Again he wiped his face with his handkerchief, and I was relieved to see that the action was stronger and firmer. ‘You are welcome. When one is a guest in a country one does not put up “No Trespassing” signs. The stream is for everyone to enjoy, and I did not think you had come to steal my cattle. Finish your lunch, please.’
‘I’m finished.’ A thought suddenly came to me. ‘Look, I’ve got some Guinness left in the bottle. If you wouldn’t mind drinking from it …?’
He hesitated just seconds, then nodded. ‘Thank you … yes.’ I ran to bring it to him, wiping the neck of the bottle carefully with Kleenex before handing it to him. I thought that again he hesitated before he tilted it to drink; but then it was gone in a few gulps.
He said, yet again, ‘You are kind.’ I wondered why he expected so little. He continued to sit there, but he looked as if he had recovered from the shock he had had. I didn’t know what to do, so I went back to my lunch packet and raincoat and gathered them up. When I came abreast of him I picked up the empty Guinness bottle. ‘I think I’d better go ‒ if you’re all right now. I’m sorry, again …’
He almost let me go. I walked up the bank and had reached the footpath at the base of the wall before he spoke. ‘Do you live near here?’ I was sure he knew I didn’t.
‘No.’ I looked back. Did he seem lonely, somehow forsaken, perched there on his rock? Was he waiting for me to say something else? Suddenly I sensed that he was indeed alone in this country, alone with the prize cattle and his beautiful park, his broad avenue and chained gate. ‘No ‒ I’m just on holiday. Just driving. I was …’ I went on because he seemed to want to listen. ‘I was planning to stay at Cloncath.’
‘You’re from England ‒ from London.’
I nodded. He said, ‘There’s not a great deal for you in Cloncath. Just one hotel and a few guest houses. There’s the harbour, of course, and a little strand. The Irish go there ‒ in summer.’
‘Well, I …’ Why, I wondered, was I attracted to the odd little man? ‒ because he hadn’t seemed to care about my trespass? ‒ because he was so unpossessive of the beauty he owned? Because he had needed my help, had accepted it from me? He looked gnomish, seated on the rock, with the springing grey mane of hair and the brown suit, a stout gnome. I felt I could trust him. I was tempted to ask my questions of him, rather than the hotel-keeper in Cloncath. After all, he himself must once have been a stranger here, and would remember what it was like to have to ask questions in a small town, to feel one’s way. He would be more sophisticated than he looked, of course, and he would be shrewd, because he was rich. Somehow I knew that he had made his own money; he had the kind of held-in energy that characterises the rich who work. Since he was a foreigner, he had to have bought this place, not inherited it. A shrewd, rich, stout little gnome; he might be full of malice as well, but I did not think so. Of all the unknown qualities that faced me, I would take my chance on him.
‘I also have a call to pay in the district.’
I saw his grey eyes light with curiosity, and was thankful that he wasn’t an Englishman who would politely mind his own business. ‘So?’ he said, frankly inviting me to tell him the rest of it.
I tried to sound casual. ‘Yes ‒ on the Sheridans. Lady Maude Sheridan. Do you know her?’ I waited; it seemed a long time. Then slowly he began to nod his head.
‘I do. But you do not know Lady Maude yourself, young lady.’ It was said with certainty, and I knew that once again my face had revealed everything I was thinking; it was what had always marked me as an outsider in the cool world of Claude and the London we both inhabited. I was aware, too, that this little man had had long experience in reading people much more profound than myself. Inwardly I shrugged, and gave myself into his hands.
‘No, not yet. I thought I would telephone from Cloncath.’
He was shaking his head. ‘Not good. I doubt she will see you.’
‘Why not.’
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘She is a little mad, you know. Daft, the Irish say. Harmless, but a little mad. She does not go into society. No one goes to Meremount any more. I should not call if I were you. You will probably not be received. It is an odd household.’
Without knowing it he seemed to be holding the door open to me to back out of what I had committed myself to. It would be so easy to accept what he said, and head back to Dublin. I could treat it all as an impulsive mistake, and try to forget about it. Why had I been foolish enough to go against the pattern of disengagement that Blanche had established over these twenty years and more? ‒ why should I assume that time would soften the stern dismissal of that reply to Blanche through the Dublin solicitors? If I went now I would be on my way and in France by Wednesday; it was possible that the job in Peter Latch’s film was still open. Sometime it might even make an amusing story around a dinner table ‒ how I went to Ireland to see my mad relations and never made it. But Blanche was not for sporting with, not for making an amusing story of. And there was the Culloden Cup.
But the gnome’s expression was not as unconcerned as it should have been. He was anxious, and he pressed his point too hard.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘why give yourself any unpleasantness? She is a daft old lady. She can be ‒ touchy.’
‘Why should there be any unpleasantness?’ I was enjoying his discomfort a little as he realised that he had said too much ‒ was he not so shrewd after all? ‘It’s a perfectly normal thing to do, isn’t it? The Sheridans are a family connection.’
‘Family?’ His tone was disbelieving. ‘There is no family.’
I decided to get it over with; if this was the usual small country town ‒ if Brendan Carroll had a tongue in his head ‒ half the population would probably know of my presence tomorrow. ‘My mother was a Sheridan.’
‘Your mother?’ He tapped the ground with his stick. ‘Who is your mother?’
‘She’s dead now. Her name was Blanche D’Arcy.’
For a moment he struggled with his memory, and then I saw the recognition begin; he blinked rapidly. ‘Blanche …’ he repeated. ‘Yes … I remember … I remember. It happened a long time ago. Before I came here.’
‘I suppose so. I … I really don’t know anything about it.’
‘You don’t know?’ He was shaking his head. ‘Then why have you come?’
I gestured helplessly, feeling irritated and confused, wondering how much of his business all this was, wondering why I had decided to confide in him. ‘There’s something that belongs to me ‒ I want it back.’ It was useless to try to explain that I had come for more than the Culloden Cup; I couldn’t explain it.
‘Then,’ he said, ‘I think you had better come back to my house, young lady, I myself will contact Lady Maude.’
‘That won’t be necessary, thank you. I can do it from the hotel in Cloncath.’
‘I think …’ He gestured with the stick. ‘No, I will be frank with you. I am sure it will be better if your arrival is announced in a less public manner than by the hotel telephone. It will be sensation enough in the district when it becomes known that you have come, but less if it seems that you have come by invitation. The old lady is mad and misguided, but she has
had enough trouble in her life.’ He paused, and his tone was quieter. ‘Heaven knows why I am so gentle with her, since she does not trouble to be gentle with me ‒ but then, why add to the blows?’ He sighed. ‘We will try to disturb her as little as possible.’
‘Will my being here disturb her?’ He was taking too much on himself, I thought.
‘I would think it likely. If I was told the story rightly ‒ if I remember it rightly ‒ Blanche was Lady Maude’s daughter. I doubt that many people around here would know there was a granddaughter.’
Suddenly I was cold and tired. I had come too far on this journey; further than I had thought I would go. I had not envisaged where it would end. Using the lure of the Culloden Cup, playing on the loneliness he had sensed in me, a man called Brendan Carroll ‒ still the only thing I knew of him was his name ‒ had led me a long way back into Blanche’s past.
‘Granddaughter.’ I repeated the word helplessly. How awkward it sounded. The term was strange and unfamiliar; I didn’t know myself in this role. But it was the truth, of course. Only a relationship as close as mother and daughter could have been terminated with such violence, only close flesh and blood offered such cruelty, such unforgiveness.
The gnome’s face puckered ‒ with compassion, perhaps, or simply curiosity satisfied. I didn’t care; I put myself in his hands. He knew at once I had capitulated. ‘You had better do as I say, young lady. We will go to my house. That is your car parked along there?’
I nodded. He got carefully to his feet and we walked then in silence back along the footpath under the wall, across the narrow bridge. I threw my raincoat into the back, and waited while he squeezed his bulk down into the passenger’s seat. He directed me where to go ‒ back the way I had come, a turn off the Cloncath road, another turn east, all the time following the wall of the park. At last he motioned me to slow, and we were at another set of gates, standing open this time, another lodge where the gnome waved to two small children playing in the garden, another broad avenue lined with oaks.
Edge of Glass Page 5
