Cashelmara

by Susan Howatch

  “I would have brought some flowers,” I said faintly, “but the garden …”

  “You brought yourself,” said Madeleine. “That’s much more important.” She shifted some papers on the little table and removed a basket of eggs from the other wooden chair. “You chose a splendid time to come. I’ve just finished with the last patient in the dispensary and was about to write a letter to the Archbishop before I looked at the ward.”

  “I hope—I mean, there’s nothing infectious, is there? I have to think of Ned.”

  “Of course. No, there’s nothing of that nature. We have only nine beds, you know, so we only take the patients who are dying and have no families to tend them. At the moment we have one malignant growth, two liver disorders and the rest are starvation cases which have gone too far to be cured. We did have three consumptives, but they’re gone now, God rest their souls.” She was just crossing herself absent-mindedly when there was a knock on the door. “Come in!” she called at once.

  A young woman came into the room. She was older than I was but perhaps still less than thirty. Her neat black dress and gentility of manner led me to assume that Madeleine had imported her, like Dr. Townsend, from Dublin.

  “Here’s your tea, Miss de Salis,” she said to Madeleine with a smile.

  “Ah yes, thank you so much. Sarah, allow me to present to you one of my most devoted and valuable volunteers, Mrs. Maxwell Drummond. Mrs. Drummond, this is my sister-in-law, Lady de Salis.”

  I recognized the name Maxwell Drummond but was at a loss to imagine how this well-spoken, well-mannered young woman could have married a rogue who, according to Patrick, was not only the chief troublemaker in the valley but also the man responsible for Derry Stranahan’s murder.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Drummond,” I said, trying not to look too amazed.

  “Well, my lady, I thank you,” she said civilly, dropping me a small curtsy, but I noticed she did not look at me when she spoke.

  “Mrs. Drummond’s youngest child is the same age as Ned,” said Madeleine, taking no notice of either my confusion or Mrs. Drummond’s embarrassment. “Stay and have some tea with us, Mrs. Drummond. There’s a stool behind the bag of meal in the corner.”

  “I wouldn’t wish to intrude, Miss de Salis.”

  “You wouldn’t be intruding,” said Madeleine in her sweetest, mildest voice. “You would be refusing an invitation.”

  Mrs. Drummond had evidently worked long enough for Madeleine to recognize an order when she heard it.

  “That’s very kind of you, Miss de Salis,” she said. “I’ll just be fetching another cup for myself.”

  “Of course,” said Madeleine benignly, watching her as she left the room. As soon as we were alone she said to me, “I feel so sorry for that girl, Sarah. She is, as you can see, educated and refined—actually a Dublin schoolmaster’s daughter—but she made the ghastly mistake of running off with Drummond, and—do you know Drummond?”

  “Good heavens, no! Patrick wouldn’t allow me within a mile of him!”

  “Well, he’s very uncouth—that would perhaps be the kindest way of describing him. And immoral,” said Madeleine, pursing her small mouth. “However, it’s not for me to judge him—I leave that to God—but at least I’ve been able to help that poor girl by providing her with an interest and a little companionship. Fortunately her husband’s two maiden aunts live at the farm, so she has help in minding the children and can spare a few hours each week to help me here at the dispensary. She told me just the other day how much she enjoyed …” Mrs. Drummond’s footsteps sounded outside. By the time the door opened Madeleine was already inquiring after Ned’s health.

  I looked at Mrs. Drummond with fresh eyes and thought how fortunate I was. When I remembered that Cashelmara was a fine house, even if it was lonely, and that Patrick had always been faithful, I felt ashamed of myself for making such heavy weather of our recent misfortunes.

  “How many children do you have, Mrs. Drummond?” I asked, anxious to be friendly toward her.

  “Six living, my lady, thanks be to God, four girls and two boys.”

  “And your youngest—the one who’s the same age as my baby?”

  “That’s Denis, my lady. He was born last December.”

  We discovered that Ned and Denis had been born within three days of each other, and a fascinating conversation followed as we compared notes on our infants’ progress. Madeleine, to her great credit, appeared to find the conversation just as fascinating as we did. It was only after we had all drunk two cups of tea that she suggested it was time at last to inspect the ward, but by then I was in such a cheerful frame of mind that I would have inspected anything without complaint.

  “I do hope you’ll be calling here again before long, Lady de Salis,” said Mrs. Drummond after I had smiled at each of the nine patients and wished them well.

  “But of course I will!” I said at once and turned to Madeleine in time to see her satisfied expression.

  Before any of us could say more, Dr. Townsend arrived from Letterturk, and Mrs. Drummond retreated to the kitchen to supervise the preparation of the midday soup.

  “You’ll do us the honor of lunching with us, I hope, Lady de Salis,” said Dr. Townsend, who was lean and spry and looked nearer fifty than seventy, but I thought of Ned having lunch in the nursery and said that unfortunately I was unable to stay. I was about to take my leave of them when there was a crisis in the ward nearby. A patient shrieked for help, and when Madeleine and Dr. Townsend rushed to the rescue I was left alone in the hall.

  The hall was large, since it served also as the waiting room for those who came to the dispensary, and bare save for the rows of stools placed against every whitewashed wall. I was standing at the end farthest from the front door, but as I waited for Madeleine I began to move slowly around the room, pausing only to read the religious texts which hung on the walls between pictures of the Virgin and Child. I was just wondering how many of the Irish could read and how many of the ones who could read would appreciate such sentiments as “Blessed Are the Poor” when there was an interruption. At the other end of the hall the front door burst open, and a gust of clammy air made me draw my cape more tightly around my shoulders as I waited for the door to close.

  But the door stayed open. A man was in the hall, his back to the light. He wore filthy trousers, muddy boots and a smelly jacket.

  Mrs. Drummond’s voice exclaimed behind me, “Max! What brings you here? Is something wrong at home?”

  And as she darted forward he slammed the door, cutting off the light behind him, and I looked for the first time upon the face of my husband’s enemy, Maxwell Drummond.

  Chapter Two

  I

  HE WAS TALL, BUT his shoulders were broad enough to make him appear shorter than he was. He had long, untidy hair, very dark, sideburns that needed trimming and a clean-shaven chin and upper lip. His eyes were even darker than his hair.

  “Max …” Mrs. Drummond was blushing, deeply embarrassed by my presence. She groped for the appropriate phrases of introduction. “Lady de Salis … my husband … Max, this is …”

  “Well, to be sure it is,” he said. “Haven’t you just said so? Good afternoon, my lady. Eileen, you’d best come home. Sally’s twisted her ankle and it’s defeating even Aunt Bridgie’s favorite poultice.”

  “I’ll come at once.” Mrs. Drummond looked distraught as well as confused. “I must fetch my shawl and tell Miss de Salis I’m leaving. Shall I ask Dr. Townsend to come with us?”

  “Jesus, no! Sally wants her mother, not a doctor!”

  “I only thought—”

  “Where’s your shawl?”

  Mrs. Drummond withdrew without another word, but I saw her bite her lip as if it were an effort for her to keep silent. She did not look at me. When she was gone I began to draw on one of my gloves.

  There was a silence. He was watching me. My other glove slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor, but although I waited for him to pick it up he
did not move. I was going to pick it up myself when I glanced at him first.

  His nose looked as if it had been broken more than once in the past, and his jaw was very square.

  I remembered the glove. It was still on the floor. I looked at it as if it presented some insoluble puzzle and felt the color, hot and moist, creep up my neck toward my face.

  And I never blush. I’ve not the complexion for it.

  He went on watching me.

  I turned, walked briskly to the ward. “Madeleine!” I called. “Madeleine, are you there?”

  Madeleine was still stooped over the patient. “One moment, Sarah, if you please,” she said, not looking up, so I moved slowly back into the hall again.

  He was still waiting there, and my glove still lay like a question mark upon the floor.

  I retrieved the glove, drew it on. What was Mrs. Drummond doing? Why didn’t she come back with her shawl? Moving to the nearest religious text, I began to read it, but suddenly I was gripped by a compulsion to look over my shoulder.

  He smiled at me.

  “Oh, Max, I’m so sorry to be keeping you waiting …” Mrs. Drummond was rushing back into the room, but I scarcely saw her. She was talking, but her words made no sense to me.

  He left. Mrs. Drummond said goodbye to me and I think I said goodbye to her. When they were gone I waited for a minute in the empty hall, and then I went outside without saying goodbye to Madeleine and told the coachman to drive me home to Cashelmara.

  II

  All the way home I told myself: I won’t think about it any more. But when I did think about it I told myself: It was nothing. I remembered all the men who had smiled at me in the past, and when I lost count I shrugged my shoulders and tried to think of something else.

  On arriving home, I felt so hot and sticky that I decided to have a bath. To have a bath in the middle of the day at Cashelmara was like asking for an earthquake, but eventually at three o’clock the bath had been filled with hot water and I was washing myself scrupulously with the last bar of the expensive soap I had bought in London. It was only later when my maid was helping me into my tea gown that I remembered not only that I had had no lunch but that I had missed having lunch with Ned in the nursery.

  I had tea with him instead, and presently Patrick came in from the garden to give Ned rides on his back across the nursery floor. I was just watching them contentedly when the thought slipped into my head: I wonder when I’ll see him again. And the thought with all its implications disturbed me so much that I had to scoop Ned off Patrick’s back and squeeze him very tightly to blot the memory of Drummond from my mind.

  After dinner that night I said to Patrick, “I’d so like another baby. Do you suppose … perhaps …”

  So we resumed our Friday nights together, but no baby came, and at last, unable to face the Marriage Act any longer without a respite, I asked if we could suspend the Friday ritual for a month. I said I hadn’t been feeling well, and he said he was sorry to hear that and he did hope I would feel better soon.

  It was impossible for him to disguise entirely the enormity of his relief.

  Meanwhile I visited the dispensary once a week, but I never saw Drummond again, although I found myself becoming well acquainted with his wife. In early December I even called on her with a little present for Denis, but word quickly traveled to Cashelmara that Lady de Salis had visited the Drummond farm, and Patrick was so angry that I realized the visit had been a mistake. Fortunately Marguerite and the boys spent Christmas with us, so we were obliged to patch up the quarrel, but the awkwardness lingered and we continued to sleep in separate rooms.

  Spring came, summer passed and never once during all my weekly visits to Clonareen did I set eyes on Maxwell Drummond. The memory of him had become blurred in my mind, but always when I went to Clonareen I was filled with an anticipation I acknowledged but made no attempt to dwell upon, and the anticipation made tolerable the emptiness of life at Cashelmara, the stifling boredom of embroidering sheets for the dispensary, paying calls, writing a page a day in my journal and struggling unsuccessfully to take an interest in household affairs.

  I had another blow in the fall when I heard from Charles that Mama had died. I had not realized until then how much I had been counting on her to visit me as soon as her health had recovered, and the news of her death plunged me into the lowest of spirits. I wrote to Charles, begging him to visit Ireland, and was bitterly disappointed when he again said that it was quite impossible for him to leave his business interests at that time. Crisis after crisis continued to rock Wall Street, and years later I learned from Charles that when Mama died he had been on the verge of bankruptcy. He did suggest that Patrick and I should visit New York instead, but of course we were even closer to penury than he was, and I was too proud to tell my brother that we couldn’t afford to cross the Atlantic to see him.

  Winter came again and with it Ned’s second birthday. We had a little party for him. Cook’s children came and Hayes’s granddaughters, and there was a luscious sponge cake crowned with butter frosting and two blue candles. Patrick had made Ned a rocking horse, and the nursery reverberated with Ned’s squeals of delight as he rocked himself to and fro.

  It was on Christmas Eve that I took two hampers of food to Clonareen, and after leaving the first for the sick at the dispensary I called on the parish priest to leave the second for the poor. Madeleine did not think highly of the priest and said he was uneducated, superstitious and no better than the peasants of his flock, but I thought he was delightful, far superior to the sullen villagers who watched my carriage pass through Clonareen every week to the dispensary. He was passionately interested in America, and on the few occasions when we had met he had asked me all manner of questions about New York.

  “I’ve brought some food, Father Donal,” I called to him as he came out of his cottage to meet me. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to distribute it among the poor tomorrow.”

  “God save you, my lady!” he said with great chivalry, helping the coachman lift the hamper down from the box. “May all the saints in heaven smile down upon you in your charity.” Having dispensed with the gratitude, he then asked me if I would do him the honor of stepping across his threshold for a sip of tea.

  I had never been into his home before. Our previous meetings had all taken place at the dispensary, but I saw no reason why Patrick should object to my being polite to the local priest, and Madeleine would surely have approved, despite her low opinion of Father Donal’s capabilities. So I descended from the carriage and allowed myself to be ushered across the threshold of a poky little cabin that smelled of soot and turf and various other odors I thought it wiser not to try to identify. I wanted to produce my lavender-scented handkerchief but had no wish to give offense. Father Donal led me to the best chair in front of the hearth, and I sat down gingerly on the hard wooden seat. Thoughts of lice and fleas flitted through my mind as Father Donal’s housekeeper, after curtsying to me at least four times, pushed two smelly dogs away from my feet and placed a pot of water to boil above the fire.

  Father Donal was already talking about New York. A hen, which had been nesting in a niche on the wall, laid an egg.

  “Praise God!” exclaimed the housekeeper, crossing herself. “And she broody these past two days!”

  “And is it really the truth, my lady,” said Father Donal, “that the Lady Chapel of St. Patrick’s is decked in cloth of gold and jewels the size of hen’s eggs?”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “I’m not in, Kitty,” said Father Donal, “unless someone’s dying, and if it’s already dead he is, tell him I’ll come later.”

  “Faith, Father,” said Drummond, opening the door before Kitty could reach it. “That’s a fine welcome to give an old friend.”

  His glance swept the room. When he saw me I managed to incline my head to acknowledge him.

  “As you can see, Max,” said Father Donal reprovingly, “it’s distinguished company I’m keeping at pr
esent.”

  “Yes. So I see. Good day, Lady de Salis,” he said, still standing on the threshold.

  I tried to say “good day” in return but could not. I felt very sick. I even wondered if I was going to faint.

  “Didn’t you see my lady’s carriage at the door?” Father Donal was saying crossly.

  “I saw it,” he said. He turned aside. “I’ll come back later.”

  “If there’s something urgent …” called Father Donal, his conscience pricking him.

  “It was nothing,” said Drummond. “Nothing at all.”

  He was gone. The door closed. It was over.

  “I’ve never seen Max so strange!” said Kitty, making the tea.

  “Ah, Max never had any manners nor ever will,” said Father Donal tartly. “I must be begging your pardon, my lady. I hope you’ll not complain to your husband that you met Maxwell Drummond beneath my roof.”

  “Of course not,” I said. The sickness had passed, but it was still difficult to breathe evenly. Fortunately Father Donal began to talk about St. Patrick’s again, and by concentrating hard I managed to say yes and no in the right places. The tea helped. By the time my cup was empty I knew I would be able to stand without feeling dizzy.

  “God go with you, my lady,” said Father Donal, escorting me outside to the carriage. “A merry Christmas to you and Lord de Salis and the honorable Master Patrick Edward.”

  “Thank you,” I said, knowing my Christmas was already ruined, and all the way to Cashelmara I wondered how close I was to madness by being so affected by the sight of a man I hardly knew.

  III

  I drank a large amount of wine at dinner that night, and afterward, feeling drowsy, I retired for an early night.

  I had a dream. Drummond was in it, but he was a long way away. He was weeding a potato patch in a field by the lough. Then Patrick came and showed me some flowers from the garden. They were beautiful. “It’s Friday,” he said. “Had you forgotten?” So we went upstairs to bed. The candle went out just as I slipped between the sheets, and I was smitten with such terror that I cried out. A match flared, the candle was lit again —but I dared not open my eyes for fear whose face I would see above me. “Only Patrick,” I said, “no one else but Patrick, because no one else must ever know.” But I knew Patrick wasn’t in bed with me any longer, because he had gone to his separate room. “No!” I screamed, my eyes still shut. “No!” But I was too late. Someone was laughing, mocking me for my failure, blaring my defects to the world.