While Sonia descended the stairs as far as the dark landing from where she could see the entire group, the men conferred briefly and shuffled toward the library door. Becoming more confident in her invisibility, Sonia crept halfway down the remaining flight of stairs and leaned over the banisters. Mrs. Hitchcock had not changed out of her dressing gown, and Sonia could see that her hostess’s embroidered pink kimono, with its wide silk sash, embarrassed the men and made them awkward. She could also glimpse Mrs. Hitchcock’s little slippers trimmed with swan’s-down, and she saw that her hostess had taken a moment to brush her hair and to apply her usual dark red lipstick.
There was enough time for Sonia to admire the older woman’s courage and how she acted as though she were in control of the situation. Despite herself Sonia was now almost at the foot of the stairs, close enough to be able to see the backs of the men as they followed Mrs. Hitchcock, whose hand now lay on the ornate glass knob of the library door. Close enough, when the door was opened, to be surprised that the room was lit by at least two lamps and that the embers of the fire still glowed in the grate. Sonia had time to think—illogically, since the smell of petrol had become stronger—that it was irresponsible of Mrs.
Hitchcock to have left the oil lamps alight and not to have raked out the fire before going up to bed, before she saw, sitting immobile in an armchair, a tumbler of whiskey and a soda siphon on the small table beside him, the man she later learned to be Nicholas Rowe.
No one, other than Sonia, ever told me the part about Nicholas Rowe. Not surprisingly, the implications were improper and troubling for a variety of reasons. Grandmother, for instance, would have felt betrayed, her friendship with the powerful Republican no longer so interesting or flattering if he were in the habit of visiting fast women under cover of darkness. The maids were reluctant to discuss Nicholas Rowe’s late-night presence at Mrs. Hitchcock’s house in part because he was for them a symbol—a land-owning Roman Catholic in a position to look any Protestant in the eye—and they would have been shocked by the thought of him consorting with a scarlet woman. A scarlet woman most likely Protestant—not that she had been seen going into a Protestant church, but anyone could tell she wasn’t a Catholic. Even less than Nicholas Rowe’s morals did they want to discuss the identity of the young revolutionaries, who had discomfited themselves, although, I suspect, not much embarrassing their superior officer, when they had raided a house in which he was being entertained. Incipient revolution in the air, the young men—or more likely boys—looking for guns became a sinister and unnerving story. And one far too close to home.
HER FIRST MORNING at Ballydavid, Easter Sunday, Sonia slept in. I could see, even as they tried to conceal their irritation, that Grandmother and Aunt Katie considered not getting up in time for breakfast to be decadent, self-indulgent, sloppy, and rackety. I was both admiring that the Countess, like Jarvis de Courcy, should take so lightly the conventions of Anglo-Irish society and impatient because I had not seen her since I had been sent out of the drawing room the afternoon before. Early in the day it was harder to dispense with my presence.
Eventually the Countess came downstairs. It was a little after twelve o’clock, and, despite her prolonged rest, she seemed sleepy and distracted.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Aunt Katie asked. “You must be famished.”
I knew the correct response to that offer. Anyone who had not appeared at breakfast was supposed to wait until lunch for refreshment, unless she were offered a biscuit and a glass of sherry at the moment deemed appropriate, lo ask for a cup of tea while lunch was being prepared was thought to be “giving trouble.” The transgression of giving trouble was unconnected to the highhanded way servants were treated by the very employer now taking offence on their behalf.
“Coffee, please,” the Countess said.
Grandmother rose to ring the bell for Bridie. She seemed to hold herself even more straightly erect than she usually did, and, although she did not allow herself to purse her lips, her nostrils seemed drawn in a little.
I supposed that a certain arrogance was inevitable if you had spent your life as a Countess, and I thought my grandmother and great-aunt might be inwardly struggling to accept that explanation for Sonia’s behavior.
There was a silence during which neither of the old ladies asked their guest if she had slept well. It was broken when Bridie came in, and it resumed after she left. Sonia, dull and puffy, did not seem to notice the lack of conversation. I could see she was not as young as I had thought her.
“Do you have a lot of yaks?” I asked, adding when I saw surprise on the adult faces, “In Manchuria?”
The Countess looked at me; for a moment she did not seem to have understood my question. I wondered if mentioning Manchuria to her was as tactless as bringing up Cairo seemed to be when Mrs. Coughlan was present.
“Yes, many,” she said, glancing toward the door, desperate for Bridie's return.
Grandmother held off asking even the most subtle question until Sonia had drunk an entire pot of coffee—black with a lot of sugar—and had accepted, shortly afterward, a glass of sherry. She refused the biscuit.
“I see you are looking at the work of Sir Oliver Lodge,” Grandmother then said, not quite accurately.
We were sitting in the library; newspapers and magazines lay on a low table in front of Sonia. They included literature from the Society for Psychical Research and books by its founder, Sir Oliver Lodge. Sonia’s eyes flickered with no apparent interest over what Ballydavid offered her to read. I wasn’t surprised she should think it dull. Neither Grandmother nor Aunt Katie read for pleasure. I wondered what Sonia read and decided after some thought that French novels would be to her taste. My own ability at that time to read French had not gone further than Madame Souris, and I had only recently started to read full-length novels in any language.
Sonia's answering smile was polite but bemused and did not suggest a pressing need to follow that line of conversation. After a moment, Grandmother approached the subject in a slightly different way.
“Katie and I are also devotees of Madame Blavatsky.”
“Madame Blavatsky?” Sonia sounded bewildered and desperate.
“You are not interested in Theosophy?” Aunt Katie asked gamely, now that Grandmother had carried that conversational ball as far as she could take it.
“I have heard the name, also that of your Madame, but I am afraid that I don’t—such things, names are not known in Manchuria.”
It seemed that Sonia’s English had taken a turn for the worse; her accent had thickened and she stumbled and searched for words.
The impasse was broken by Bridie coming to announce lunch.
Sonia was silent and gloomy throughout lunch, although she seemed to have a good appetite. The cooking at Ballydavid was good, the household not suffering through one of the fad diets that Grandmother and Aunt Katie from time to time embraced.
Sonia had eaten dinner with Grandmother and Aunt Katie the evening before, but the dining room had been lit only by the candelabra on the table and the candles on either side of the looking glass on the chimneypiece. Now sunlight streamed in, and my uncle Sainthill's portrait on the wall opposite the windows was clearly lit. Sonia finished her oeufs en cocotte before she looked up and saw it. Her face lost its habitual look of preoccupation, and she regarded the painting with an expression of affectionate pity and recognition. The old ladies, without moving, seemed to stiffen their spines.
“Your poor uncle,” she said to me, “you remember him, of course.”
I nodded. Not quite truthfully.
“His medals—the Military Cross? You have them?”
“In the glass case in the drawing room,” Grandmother said faintly.
“With the cigarette case,” Aunt Katie added firmly.
In the silence that followed, both the old ladies looked meaningfully at the Countess. But she added nothing more, merely nodding her head as though something she knew well had been confirmed.
>
“So young,” she said a little later while Bridie offered her roast duck. “So beautiful, and all his life before him.”
She had the attention of every person at the table, and I could see that Bridie was missing nothing.
“That poor girl. Now she will never marry.”
Grandmother said nothing. Since her son’s death, she had tended to minimize Uncle Sainthill's relationship with the young woman from County Clare whom, although they weren’t engaged, it was believed he had intended to marry when the war was over. Since her son’s death, Grandmother had become jealous of Margaret. Instead of shared sorrow making the two women closer, Grandmother went out of her way not to see Margaret and never, if she could help it, to mention her; on the rare occasions it proved necessary to speak her name, she would refer to her as Miss Hall.
“Oh, I expect she will,” Aunt Katie said, her social instincts carrying her back toward safer waters and away from where she wanted to be. “Later on, of course.”
“Never,” Sonia said firmly.
There was another silence while the old ladies considered Sonia’s pronouncement, unable to decide whether it was prophecy or merely cheek.
“Like Cordelia Hitchcock,” Sonia added.
“She will never marry again?” Aunt Katie asked.
“She will, of course, marry again. That sort of woman always does.” This seemed to be an observation rather than a prediction. “She thinks she will sleep tomorrow night at her hotel, the—ah———”
“The Shelbourne,” Aunt Katie suggested helpfully.
“The Gresham,” Grandmother said simultaneously.
“The Shelbourne,” Sonia said.
The Shelbourne was where Anglo-Irish women stayed in Dublin. (Men not accompanied by their wives stayed at the Kildare Street Club.) The Gresham, on Sackville Street, was also a handsome and well-run hotel but lacked the tradition of the Shelbourne. I remember, when I was older, my mother’s words: “Oh, the Gresham—Americans and priests.” The question now before the old ladies at Ballydavid was whether Mrs. Hitchcock should score a point for staying at the Shelbourne or lose one for aping the behavior of the Anglo-Irish. While they considered this, I thought of Sonia and the confident way she was predicting the future. Not that her first two pronouncements exposed her to much risk: Until Margaret married or Mrs. Hitchcock died unmarried, she could not be proved wrong. Now it seemed as though she were going to stick her neck out and predict something for the following day. I wondered if what she was about to tell us would be not easily verifiable.
“Cordelia thinks she will spend tomorrow night at the Shelbourne, but she will not.”
“Why not?” Aunt Katie asked, her eyes sparkling. I could see that, although Grandmother was enthralled, she was also disapproving. Possibly the mention of hotel bedrooms in the context of a woman who had just lost her already shaky reputation upset her; she was probably about to suggest I should leave the table before pudding was served.
“She just won’t,” Sonia said and popped a forkful of duck into her mouth.
“But where will she sleep?” I piped up.
Grandmother and Aunt Katie looked at me disapprovingly; Sonia smiled and said nothing.
UNCLE WILLIAM CAME to tea that afternoon. The following day he was going up to Dublin for a committee meeting of the Kildare Street Club, where he was planning to stay for a week to take care of some minor business and to have one of his periodic breaks from rural life and the limitations of Waterford society.
Sonia, despite the hour she had come downstairs that morning, had gone back to her bedroom after lunch to rest. Grandmother and Aunt Katie were simultaneously pleased that Sonia’s absence would allow them to discuss her with Uncle William and less pleased to be denied the opportunity of watching Uncle William handle Sonia, or vice versa. They were also less than happy about the way their guest was “treating the place like an hotel.” Although I didn’t care if Sonia treated Ballydavid like an hotel, I worried that she might have nocturnal habits that would prevent me witnessing her next pronouncements.
I set off obediently for my rest and walk; I did not intend to appear until Uncle William had arrived and was comfortably settled in front of the drawing-room fire, drinking tea from his special outsized cup. I was looking forward to his masculine, forthright way of speaking and thought he might have brought me an Easter present. I was also aware it was difficult for Grandmother and Aunt Katie to dispense with my presence on one of Uncle William’s visits, although he had no difficulty in sending me out of the room if there was something he wanted to say to the old ladies in private.
Returning from my walk a little early, I entered the house through the kitchen, confirmed to my satisfaction that Maggie had gone all out to please Uncle William, and ran up the back stairs. In my room, I carefully brushed my hair, changed my dress, and composed myself to appear demure and innocent while avoiding the dangerously similar expression that suggested deep stupidity.
Ready for tea, I quietly closed the door of my room behind me. Although it was only midafternoon on an April day, the corridor was almost dark; a monkey puzzle, planted too close to the house, reduced the light that filtered through the opaque window and its stained-glass border. A gloomy halflight that came from the hall windows below guided me to the landing at the top of the stairs.
I didn’t at first see Sonia looking over the banisters. She was still and her shawls blended into the sepia light. They covered more of her than they usually did and, were it not for a patch of flimsy lace and silk at her ankle and her bare feet on the thin landing carpet, I would not have guessed that she had come straight from her bed. I assumed she had got up when she heard the noisy masculine arrival of Uncle William. The hall was now silent, so I knew Uncle William must have gone into the drawing room. Sonia was looking straight ahead, her expression thoughtful; in front of her there was nothing but a large painting of a battle at sea. Since the picture had not been deemed good enough for the hall and was only just visible through the gloom, I supposed her thoughts to be elsewhere.
It had been instilled in me soon after my arrival at Ballydavid that, although I was expected to be quiet, I was not to approach an adult so silently that I might give her a fright—the maids had described in graphic detail what the consequences would certainly be—so I cleared my throat as I stepped off the carpet onto the wooden floor. I wasn’t sure she had heard me, but I suspected it would take more than my unanticipated presence to give Sonia a heart attack. I stood beside her, looking down the shadowy and empty staircase.
“That is your uncle—Uncle William?” she said presently.
“I expect so. They went into the drawing room?”
“Your Aunt Katie was married to his father? And he lives alone?”
There was a brief confusion caused by my having considered Uncle William not to live alone since his house was heavily staffed. But it didn’t matter since Sonia had already seen Ballinamona Park and only wanted to confirm that there was no Mrs. Martyn in the wings. A few more questions followed along the lines of how much land was attached to Ballinamona. I think now she would have asked me how much money Uncle William had if she had imagined I could have known the answer. But there were also questions that baffled me: Where had he gone to school? What was the name of his dog? His favorite horse? I wondered if I should warn her to be careful of splinters from the uncarpeted floor.
Although I did not consider any time spent with Sonia wasted, I also did not want to miss too much of what was passing between the old ladies and Uncle William. When I came into the drawing room Uncle William was laughing.
“Adventuress?” He didn’t hear me quietly opening the door behind him. “An adventuress and clairvoyant at Ballydavid? A fortune teller! What would Uncle Percival have said?”
My entrance, of course, put a close to that topic of conversation, but I thought the old ladies welcomed the interruption; they knew very well just what Uncle Percival would have said.
Uncle William h
ad brought me presents, a small, ornately packed box of chocolates and a wooden puzzle. The chocolates would, I knew, be rationed—one after lunch each day—and I made no attempt to open them. But the puzzle, interesting enough in its own way, was of immediate use. I could take it a little away from the adults and play with it as soon as I had finished my tea.
Gradually, after a tea that relaxed and lowered guards, conversation drifted back to the subject of Sonia. I thought that Uncle William had probably heard the story of the cigarette case before and had not been quite as impressed as we all had been. Now the additional lunchtime predictions were recounted to add credibility; I was interested to see how firmly and loyally Grandmother and Aunt Katie were lined up behind their resident clairvoyant.
But Uncle William refused to take any of it seriously. He tended to amuse himself by teasing the old ladies when he came to visit. I think that in a general way they enjoyed his gentle banter; it was a different form of attention and it made them feel young.
“Big earrings?” he asked. “Crystal ball? You cross her palm with silver?”
Both Grandmother and Aunt Katie laughed while protesting Sonia’s authenticity. It seems possible now that Uncle William enjoyed these visits more than I imagined; it is unlikely he ever faced a less critical audience.
Soon Sonia joined us. I was more surprised than the others since I knew how quickly she must have dressed. We all looked at her with interest. Uncle William might have seen Sonia before but not in a place when he could observe her at his leisure or ask awkward questions. Grandmother’s and Aunt Katies feelings were mixed: a balance of the curiosity they felt in her presence and a fear that Uncle William would make her appear ridiculous or discredit her.
Sonia had again dressed suitably for afternoon tea at Ballydavid without sacrificing that touch of the exotic that complemented her image. The two large suitcases with which she had arrived at Ballydavid contained all that remained of her worldly possessions. I was once in her room and saw how meager her wardrobe was. Lady Ottoline Morell, famous for her elegance and her beautiful clothes, achieved her distinctive look partly by the way her shawls were draped and expertly pinned by her maid. Sonia, poor and worn around the edges, took, with a fair degree of success, a similar approach to her dress. Her shabby skirts and frayed blouses were covered with layers of shawls; the ones she now wore might well have been those I had fifteen minutes before seen covering her nightdress as she stood barefoot on the landing.
The Fox's Walk Page 18
