Edge of Glass

by Catherine Gaskin

‘I do ‒ but expediencies always have to have their heroes and their villains, their own folk-lore. It’s easier for an Irishman to hate and fight someone he knows, like the Tyrells, than hate a whole amorphous mass called the English.’ With a return of his usual impatience he jerked his head for me to go in ahead of him. ‘Well, are we going to debate the Irish question, or shall we go up and see the view from the top?’

  ‘Is that why we came?’

  ‘Why else.’

  It was trespass, and I had no real rights here, no more than he did; but as he had demonstrated to me, the myth of the Tyrells still had its own power to draw and to hold. I moved ahead of him and found my foot on the first of the steep worn stone steps that spiralled narrowly and dizzily above me in the thickness of the wall of O’Ruairc’s Tower.

  ‘The domain of the Tyrells,’ Connor’s arm extended out beyond the parapet; his gesture took in the whole countryside. ‘To Cloncath, to Doylestown ‒ as far as you could see, as Lady Maude is fond of telling me. It could very nearly be the truth, too. They once owned half the county, and what they didn’t own outright, they controlled politically.’ I looked where his gesture indicated; close about us the park of the Castle, beyond that the fields and meadows, small, neatly patterned, beyond that Cloncath and the grey glimmer of the sea; I could see Meremount and the two lodges. Mist was beginning to gather in the lower places, along the streams, wreathing into the trees that lined the roads ‒ a gentle, intimate countryside with no hint of the violence of its history. I looked down the sheer drop of a hundred or more feet to the brilliant green turf and thought of the bowmen that had manned these walls, and the battles fought for the possession of these stones ‒ of the last battle that, finally, the Tyrells had lost.

  ‘What does it matter?’ I said. I was growing weary of the subject. ‘What does it matter that it once belonged to the Tyrells? The Tyrells are finished … I said that before.’

  This time he didn’t protest. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘The power doesn’t lie with what once was. And the future is still to be fought for. Over there,’ he added. He nodded his head towards the dark slate roof of Meremount set among its fields. ‘The Tyrells are finished, but there still could be a future for the Sheridans.’

  I waited. I wasn’t going to help him, nor anticipate him.

  ‘This morning …’ he began, ‘this morning when you came into Lady Maude’s room we were talking ‒’

  ‘You were quarrelling,’ I corrected him. ‘You were shouting ‒ the way you were shouting that first night, the night she had her attack.’

  He looked at me, startled, his expression darkening. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I was wakened by it ‒ why wouldn’t I? It was enough to wake anyone. It almost killed her, didn’t it? And since then everyone has thought that it was brought on by my coming so suddenly. I’ve been listening to you lying about it, and letting people go on believing that, and I’ve been waiting for you to tell me the truth yourself. But you would never have told me the truth, would you?’

  He turned upon me, full face, and the man of the despairing rage was back again, the one I was familiar with, the one I knew better than the gentle charmer.

  ‘No, by God, and why should I! If you’ve had to bear some of this trouble, then it was no more than your due. You came here, uninvited, unannounced ‒’

  ‘Unwanted,’ I added.

  ‘Yes ‒ unwanted. You suddenly walked into what I’ve been building all this time. You just walked in, her granddaughter. A Tyrell, not just a Sheridan, and she was ready to hand it all to you. So you were responsible ‒ as much as if you had been in the room fighting it out with us.’

  ‘Is that what you said to her that night? ‒ and this morning?’

  ‘I did ‒ I said it in as many words. You don’t think I don’t know the old witch? She’s a Tyrell, and I’ve had enough time to find out exactly what that means ‒ and of what she thinks it means, and the rights and privileges it confers. So I told her that if you were in, I was out ‒ that I didn’t intend to stay and become dog’s-body to the next generation of Tyrells.’

  ‘If I was in? … what did she say to that?’

  ‘Nothing … nothing. She said nothing. She couldn’t speak. That was when it happened.’

  ‘So you still don’t know? You still don’t know ‒ what was it you said? ‒ if I was in and you were out?’

  ‘No, I don’t know, and the old devil will do her best to try to keep it that way ‒ to keep me on a string, and you too, if she can. As long as she’s alive, no one will know.’

  ‘And that was what you were trying to find out again this morning, wasn’t it? That was what the argument was about ‒ the shouting?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and his tone became quieter. ‘That was what it was about. This morning I heard Annie telephoning Swift and O’Neil. James O’Neil is coming down from Dublin on Monday, so she must have decided on changes in her will.’

  ‘Swift and O’Neil?’ But I was remembering the name on the letter addressed to Blanche after I had been born.

  ‘The Tyrell solicitors. So, there are going to be changes in the will. That means only one thing ‒ you are in.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean you are out.’

  ‘No ‒ it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m out. But that’s what she’ll make sure neither of us will know. Not until the day of her funeral when James O’Neil comes to read the will. We’ll be kept dangling until then.’

  ‘And you would rather she was dead now ‒ before there can be any changes.’ It could not be left unsaid; it was forced out of me. ‘Was that what you were trying to do that first night? ‒ to kill her? Did you try to do it again this morning?’

  ‘Kill her?’ The bitterness of tone was only a recognition of things as they were. ‘I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t want to at times. But killing isn’t that easy. The deed is more difficult than the wish. But anyone who says he’s never in his life wished another person dead is lying. Is that what you wanted to know? ‒ did I try to kill her? Well, I didn’t put my hands around her throat, and I didn’t hit her with anything. But perhaps ‒ yes, perhaps I tried to kill her. That’s as much truth as I know. You asked for it. Now you have it.’

  I had it ‒ or enough of the truth to make all of it sound like the truth. How skilful was he in manipulating the truth, and how much did he rely on its shock value to upset every calculation I had made of him?

  ‘Suppose ‒ just suppose Lady Maude does intend to change her will? To bring me in, but not to leave you out? What then?’

  He shook his head. ‘It can’t be done. There’s nothing to divide. If you use all of what there is to one purpose ‒ to put the glassworks on its feet, you just might make it. If you try to split it up, you’ll destroy the whole.’

  ‘And suppose … suppose she doesn’t intend it to be divided? Suppose the whole is for me?’ I heard the cold injustice of what I was saying, but I was beginning to understand the depth of injustice of which the old lady was capable if it would satisfy her sense of what was due the Tyrells.

  Connor’s faint shrug acknowledged the possibility also, accepting that injustice existed and might be expected. He had already acknowledged the fact that he might have wanted to kill before the injustice could be made a legal fact.

  ‘Then you’re welcome to it. Because you’ll lose the lot. What Sheridan Glass needs is a Sheridan. It can get along without a genius in glass, like Brendan, because it can continue to do what it has always done. But it needs a Sheridan’s guts and sweat behind it. It needs a business man, not an artist. It needs years of work and no profits taken. If it had just this much it could struggle up from its knees. In time, Waterford could find its rival. But it needs a Sheridan ‒ it needs me. If you tried to do it without me you’d go under. Even if you had Praeger money, even if you had Brendan Carroll, I still think you’d lose it. It needs a Sheridan.’

  ‘I’m a Sheridan.’

  ‘Exactly. And so am I. All right ‒ I know
I can’t do more with a piece of glass than break it, but no Sheridan since Thomas himself has worked harder to make a go of the place. Why waste the strength of that? ‒ why dissipate what we both have. Instead of dividing, we join strengths. The pragmatic solution.’

  ‘That means …’ I marvelled at the calmness of my own voice, ‘… that we would marry.’

  ‘Of course.’ He was sure and confident. ‘I’ve said I’d not be dog’s-body to another generation of Tyrells. But I’d work like a dog for a wife ‒ and if that wife were a Sheridan …’

  ‘Is that all I am to you ‒ a Sheridan?’

  ‘You’re joking! You don’t believe that for a moment. You don’t have to go back to your mirror to be sure that finding a husband will present no problem for you. You only have to know the way men look at you ‒ the way I look at you, and Brendan looks at you, and every man you met today. The old and the young ‒ including Praeger. Finding a husband will not be your problem, but choosing one. There are probably a dozen men in London right now you could marry. Only up to this you’ve not been sure enough that any of them is right for you ‒ that Justin man you told me about ‒ him or anyone else.’

  ‘But you’re sure you’re right for me?’

  ‘I’m sure. Look ‒ I’m not saying I’m the only man you could marry. I’m saying I’m the best man ‒ given what you are, and who you are. Given all the conditions that now exist ‒ yes, I’m sure.’

  What a game we played, I thought, with our voices held down, our tones even and controlled, as though what we spoke of was not an outrageous thing in an age when marriage was never a contract, but an impulse acted upon. My seeming calmness led him on, and I knew it; but I was fascinated and spellbound by his ability to weave a future for us together when four days ago we had not laid eyes on each other.

  ‘You’re going to say it’s all too quick ‒ and what about love? Aren’t people who marry supposed to be in love? But couldn’t … Maura, couldn’t we be a little in love right now? Couldn’t we be much more in love if we let it happen? You see how it could be, don’t you? You know how it could be between us already. You’re more of a Sheridan than you’ll admit or you’d never have come to Ireland in the first place. You’re more interested in Sheridan Glass ‒ or me, perhaps ‒ than you’ll admit, or you’d never have stayed on. Unless I miss my guess you’re not at all sure you want to run back to London and all that modelling business ‒ or you’d never have given up your chance in a film, or taken the risk of getting on the wrong side of all the people who can help you. You’d never have given up anything like that because of a mad old lady. If those kind of things were important to you, you’d have left here after the first hour ‒ certainly after the first night. Why have you stayed? If it’s Sheridan Glass you want, then I go with it.’

  ‘What about Lotti?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She didn’t stay.’

  ‘Lotti wasn’t a Sheridan. She wouldn’t have stayed here ‒ with me or with any other man, for very long.’

  ‘You’re so sure about me ‒ couldn’t you tell that about Lotti?’

  ‘Lotti was …’ For the first time he fumbled for a word. ‘Lotti was an education. I’m not stupid. I learn. I think I’ve learned the difference.’

  It had come to other minds, of course, this thought that Connor had dared so quickly to put into words. Other people besides him had seen the way we might go, the convenient arrangement, the pragmatic solution, as Connor called it. I had been too often compared with Lotti, and then the essential differences noted. I remembered the Reverend Stanton, and how, even in his naive garrulity, he had happened almost on Connor’s very words. ‘I know the difference,’ he had said. I had seen that thought flash into the minds of the men I had met in the bar at The Four Kingdoms, it had been plain in the way Brendan had raised his glass to me in his mocking little salute. It had been said in a drunken slur ‘‒ but this one’s Irish’. And then I thought that not even in the cool world of Claude, from which I had seemed to seek some kind of escape, could the sophisticated arrangement between two people have been bettered by what Connor proposed. It was as calculated as anything that other world could contrive.

  I looked at the gentle intimacy of the scene below me, the soft fields bathed in the grey light, the marvellous green of the young leaves, the tender curls of grey smoke that came from the chimneys of Castle Tyrell. I saw from the smoke that rose from the chimney at the North Lodge that Brendan was there. One chimney only at Meremount gave sign of life. The mallards moved placidly on the lake, the waves were miniature and harmless. It was a scene of enormous serenity and peace, a scene of innocence. But it was capable of producing the same cool answers to the same questions one had to ask oneself in any place.

  I turned and walked back to the narrow opening that gave access to the spiral stairs. Connor was sure enough of the power of his words that he hadn’t needed to put his hands on me ‒ not tried to kiss me or call me back. He would leave the coldness of reason to work for him, and that which he said was already working between us. His voice reached me just as I was about to disappear from his sight on the first twist of the spiral.

  ‘You haven’t said no.’

  That was the trouble ‒ I hadn’t. I felt my way down carefully in the alternating patches of darkness and light from the narrow slits in the walls; I made my way out of the tower and still Connor’s footsteps did not sound behind me. I should have said no at once, but that would have been the square answer to the cool question.

  I walked around the base of O’Ruairc’s Tower to the front entrance to the Castle. It was already a familiar thing to walk up these steps and see O’Keefe come to the door, to see his acceptance of my being there, as if I had been there always and would be forever. There was no questioning, even by the lift of an eyebrow.

  ‘Please tell Mr. Praeger that I have come to tea.’

  VI

  O’Keefe drove me back to Meremount from Castle Tyrell leaving Otto Praeger with the feeling that he had won a victory. I had merely told him that I had climbed O’Ruairc’s Tower, as he had invited me to do. He knew, of course, that I had been with Connor, but he did not question either my leaving him, or the fact that Connor still had a key to the Tower. That I had come to him instead of returning with Connor seemed satisfaction enough. He did not press his victory, but was curiously quiet during the hour we spent together, urging tea on me, and showing me his rare books, scrupulous in his avoidance of anything personal; he did not even ask me to come again when I left, as if determined to prove how disciplined he could be. He merely said, ‘On Sunday, I go to New York.’

  Connor was not at Meremount when I returned. ‘Himself rang through that he’d not be in this evening,’ was all Annie said. I spent an hour in Lady Maude’s room reading to her. She had indicated a copy of Country Life. ‘There’s a piece there about larks,’ she said. From the way she settled, the eyelids closed, her hands folded together as if in anticipation, I guessed she had read it already, and when it was done she asked me to read it again. I had gone on to a piece about white-tailed deer when Mrs. O’Shea returned.

  A look of displeasure came at once to Lady Maude’s face. ‘Tomorrow, Mrs. O’Shea, I’ll speak to Dr. Donnelly. Having you here is quite unnecessary. An unnecessary expense … After all, my granddaughter is here.’

  ‘And I’ll take my orders from Dr. Donnelly, thank you, Lady Maude,’ Mrs. O’Shea replied tartly. ‘I’ve no doubt you can do without me, but I’ll go when Dr. Donnelly says I’m to go, and not before.’

  I left them, hearing again, with a sense of dread, the words, ‘my granddaughter is here’. It had been easier, if less comfortable, before I began to have this qualified approval from Lady Maude. The knot was pulling tighter.

  I grilled chicken in herb butter with garlic for dinner. It was now an unspoken agreement that when Connor was not there, we ate together in the kitchen; then, to postpone the moment when the meal would be finished a
nd the empty hours before bed still to be filled, I made zabaglione, using the last of Connor’s cognac in place of marsala. ‘Sure, you’d never know the difference,’ Annie said, who had never tasted it either way before. Mrs. O’Shea spooned up the last of it with relish. ‘A grand beginning to tomorrow’s doings,’ she said. ‘Great-Uncle Patrick always loved his wee drop.’

  Meremount at night was an unfriendly place. I wandered through the huge, high-ceilinged rooms on the ground floor ‒ the hall, dining-room, morning-room, drawing-room and library. The few lights that worked only dimly illuminated the vastness, no fires burned in the cold grates; the rooms had no purpose or function except to store the fruits of Lady Maude’s garnering. Half-heartedly I looked at some pictures stacked one against the other ‒ still life, hunting scenes ‒ they had probably been bought in lots at auction, and I didn’t know enough to pick the better ones that Otto Praeger said could be buried here. Connor’s office would have provided a place to sit; a fire was laid ready for a match. But that, least of all, was the place I wanted Connor to find me when he came back. So I climbed the stairs; Lotti’s cat went with me to the first landing; there she stayed, watching me, a single low plaintive yowl proclaiming the emptiness of that crowded house; the endless melancholy of her wait for the girl who did not come back.

  Passing Lady Maude’s door I caught the low tones of the two women inside, the latest phase of the unremitting battle they fought for supremacy. I was surprised by the strength and clarity of Lady Maude’s tone.

  Then late, but before I slept, there came the sound of Connor’s car. He entered the house through the kitchen. It seemed a long time before the stairs creaked with his weight. Suddenly, in the quiet, was the cry of Lotti’s cat, and the muffled admonition that followed it. Then the footsteps continued on their journey, up the stairs and along the passage, the tread soft, but the old house betraying it.

  Finally he reached my door, and stopped. I waited, and heard my own swift, hard intake of breath. I didn’t know whether I wanted the door to open or not, and in that moment of waiting I seemed powerless either to invite or protest ‒ perhaps I lacked the courage and the will for what I desired in my heart. But the decision was not mine. Very close at hand now there came, once more, the cry of the cat, and then the door trembled as if the cat’s body had brushed against it. There followed Connor’s breathy exclamation of annoyance, the stifled curse. Then he must have picked up the cat, because its cry was not repeated. I heard the footsteps move off along the hall in the direction of Connor’s room. They did not return. I lay there wakeful for a long time, and I was feeling as I had felt that afternoon as I descended the tower steps and Connor’s voice had cried after me ‘You didn’t say no’. But this time my body had been roused and he would have had a greater weapon than mere reason or persuasion. If he had come to me here in the darkness my senses might have made the answer he sought.