Cashelmara

by Susan Howatch

  “Yes, of course. What shall I say when they ask me about my plans for the future?”

  “Repeat what you told them in the letter. Tell them your main concern is to obtain legal custody of the children as soon as possible. Obviously they approve of that idea or they wouldn’t be here to greet you. Lead up to the idea of a divorce and see if they approve of that too. Find out what’s been going on at Cashelmara. Say you’re prepared to live there with the children if MacGowan and your husband could be removed. What we want is for your brothers-in-law to offer to have your husband stay with them in England.”

  “What shall I say when they start asking about MacGowan?”

  “Talk about the legal possibilities of removing him. Talk about the legal possibilities of everything, separation, divorce, custody, control of the estate—the whole goddamned lot. There’s nothing the Saxons like better than to talk long and loud about the law.”

  “I’m especially anxious to find out what they think about Patrick’s attempt to secure a decree of restitution of conjugal rights. If Patrick really had no likelihood of winning the decree—if it really was all just another scheme of MacGowan’s to drive me insane—”

  “Of course it was! Didn’t I tell you that over and over again?”

  “Yes, but I knew Patrick must sincerely have wanted to get Ned back and hold on to the other children.”

  “And MacGowan made use of that sincerity so that he could have a new chance to persecute you! Well, don’t you be worrying any more about Hugh MacGowan, sweetheart. Tomorrow morning I’ll be taking the first car into the Joyce country.”

  “Maxwell, promise me you’ll be careful!”

  “As careful as a tinker with a crock of gold,” I said, smiling at her, and while she was gone I wondered again how far the young de Salis brothers would be prepared to help us.

  But the news proved good. When Sarah returned to our bedroom after dinner she told me Lord de Salis’s drunkenness was much worse, and although neither of his brothers had been able to face visiting Cashelmara for some months they had heard from their sister that Lord de Salis’s health had deteriorated. Both of them thought he hadn’t a hope of either winning a divorce petition or being awarded custody of the children, and both said they were prepared to go to court if necessary to have their brother judged incompetent and MacGowan removed from office.

  “What a surprise it’ll be for them when they find out that going to court won’t be necessary!” I said, kissing her, and after we had celebrated the good news I no longer wasted time worrying but fell instead into a deep dreamless sleep.

  III

  The outside car left Galway City at eight o’clock the next morning and bumped and swayed over the hills through the rolling meadows to Oughterard. It was raining at first, but beyond Oughterard the rain stopped, and ahead on the horizon I could see the Twelve Bens, the mountains of Connemara, rising to the skies in a single prayer. The clouds shifted and parted, the sun shone, and suddenly the little loughs we passed were blue as jewels, and the bog, brown-green and restful as a lullaby, rolled endlessly toward the hills.

  The meadows were long gone now, the soft frilly fields of buttercups no more than a memory. There was nothing to distract the eye but the mountains walking toward us from the horizon, nothing but pure lines and the stillness of some magical dream and the godlike peace of another world. I had traveled that road several times before, but never in all my life did I see it as I saw it then after three years of exile in foreign cities. If any man wants a true taste of heaven he should toil in the gutter of New York City and then journey through Oughterard from Galway into the fairest land on earth.

  The mountains encircled us like a fairy ring, and I felt so safe and warm and comfortable—as if I were back in my father’s house again with the peat fire smoldering on the hearth. The mountains were tall, straight and strong, and not a tree marred their shining lines. Beautiful as sharpened blades they were, and they shimmered in the sun with the radiance of naked steel.

  “Your honor wanted the next crossroad?” called the carman, and ahead of me the sun was blazing on the road that led to Letterturk.

  “Indeed I do,” I said, “for I’m bound for Cashelmara and the town of Clonareen.”

  I began to walk. It was wonderfully quiet, with only the running water of the stream nearby and the occasional bleating of a sheep above me on the mountainside. I walked on and on uphill through the gulley to the top of the pass, and as I watched, the clouds shifted endlessly sending shadows chasing across the misty stretches of furze.

  I came to the pass between Bunnacunneen and Knocknafaughey, and there below me like a dazzling dream lay the long, slender lough and Cashelmara.

  I stopped for a long moment, and around me the wind hummed through the pass and the water cascaded over a precipice into the valley far below.

  I set off downhill. I crossed the Fooey River. I walked past the gates of Cashelmara and along the lough to Clonareen, and all my kin came out to meet me and all the other families came too, even the Joyces, and when I arrived at last in the main street of Clonareen I found myself carried shoulder-high through a cheering crowd, as if everyone already knew I’d come to rescue them from their nemesis, Hugh MacGowan.

  IV

  Several hours later in Jeremiah O’Malley’s cabin I laid my gun upon the table.

  “This was given to me by a cousin of ours in New York City,” I said. “His name’s Jim O’Malley and a finer man you could never meet though you could travel the length and breadth of America all your life long looking. His family was evicted during the Great Hunger by Lord Lucan, God curse his Black Protestant name forevermore, and ever since that terrible day Jim O’Malley has vowed revenge.”

  Someone obligingly filled up my mug of poteen, so I paused to drink.

  “So when Jim O’Malley gave me this gun,” I continued, “he said to me, ‘Maxwell Drummond,’ says he, ‘I never want to see this gun again until it’s stained with Saxon blood—keep it,’ says he, ‘and when it’s served its purpose send it back to me along with the brave man who’s rid Ireland of one more of the tyrants which the Saxons have sent to persecute us.’” I paused for another taste of poteen and looked around. You could have heard a pin drop.

  “So I said, ‘To be sure, Jim, there’s nothing I’d like better than to return the gun to you myself, but my reputation’s so exalted with the Saxons that they’d never let me escape to America a second time. And besides,’ says I, ‘I’ve the chance to teach young Master de Salis how to be a good landlord, and I’ll be needed in the valley to help my kin.’ So he says with tears in his eyes, ‘’Tis a shame, Max, so it is, but send me the bravest man among your kin and I’ll be well content.’”

  I picked up the gun again, and the tallow flame flickered along the barrel. Eight heads craned forward yearningly to take a better look.

  “Let me take it back to Jim O’Malley, Max,” says young Tim.

  “No, I’ll take it,” says Jerry, his father.

  “No, it’s for me to have the glorious chance!” begged Shaneen. “And me the youngest of nine with not even a yard of potatoes to call my own—and all that money waiting in Ameriky.”

  “Dear God, let me see Ameriky before I die!” sighs his brother Joe.

  “Let me—”

  “No, me—”

  “We’ll draw lots,” I said. “We’ll do the choosing sweet and fair, just as it should be done, and may the best man win.”

  So we took straws from the floor and I evened them out and Shaneen won, which pleased me, for there was so little to keep him in the valley, and for years he had talked of emigrating.

  “What do I do, Max?” he asked, all eagerness, when the choice was settled.

  “Be at the gates of Cashelmara before noon tomorrow, take cover among the rocks and wait for me there. But first let me show you how to use this gun.”

  “Jesus, what if I miss?” Shaneen said nervously afterward.

  “That’s impossible—yo
u’ll be too close,” I said, for I knew he had a good eye and all he needed was confidence. The Brotherhood had once had guns circulating in the area, and Shaneen and I and a few others had been selected for firearm instruction. We’d gone up into the mountains three times a week for target practice and would have gone every day except that ammunition had been too scarce.

  Presently when the poteen was passed around again I told them I had hopes of becoming the agent at Cashelmara. “And if I’m agent,” I said with a smile, “you can be sure this valley will be the land of milk and honey God promised Moses, with never a man evicted and everyone paying Lord de Salis only what’s fair and reasonable.”

  “But how’ll Lord de Salis come to be choosing you as his agent, Max?” said Joe.

  “Why, Lord de Salis is going to England with his brothers to take a cure for the drink,” I said, “and Lady de Salis will speak up for me, you can be sure of that.”

  I heard the awkwardness in the silence and saw how all of a sudden no one would meet my eye. “Dear God,” I said, appalled, “you’ll not be believing the wicked rumors that I’ve seduced Lady de Salis! And me with a wife and six children in Dublin! Lady de Salis may be the finest lady in the world and the most beautiful, but I’ve done no more than any other man anxious to help a lady in distress.”

  I saw the relief in their faces and knew I’d been right to bend the truth a little. Fighting the Saxon enemy was one thing; adultery was quite another.

  “Will you be rebuilding your home and bringing Eileen back, Max?” asked Jerry.

  “Sure I’ll be rebuilding my home,” I said. “Don’t I have my children to provide for? But if Eileen decides to stay in Dublin there’ll be nothing I can do to bring her back.”

  “Eileen always did hold herself above us,” someone said.

  “And maybe Max will too,” said someone else jokingly, “when he’s agent for Lord de Salis.”

  “The day will never dawn, please God,” I said good-humoredly, “when I shall be ashamed to cross your threshold and accept your hospitality.”

  And indeed it felt so good to be back among those men who were like brothers to me that I stayed up late talking to them and fell asleep only when the dawn was breaking in the east and the last drop was gone from the last jar of poteen.

  V

  I borrowed a horse from Mr. O’Shaughnessy, the gombeen man (he always had the best horse in the valley), and rode down the road to Cashelmara. It was eleven o’clock, the sun was high and the cool wind blew away my headache before I was a mile from Clonareen.

  I reached the great iron gates. They were not only unlocked but standing wide open, and when I saw that I smiled, for I knew it was my enemy’s way of flinging down the gauntlet. I rode through the gates. I wasn’t afraid of ambush, for I knew he’d never dare shoot me in cold blood unless he could claim I’d provoked him to it, and surely not even a Saxon court of law could see any provocation in a man paying a morning call.

  Dismounting, I hitched the horse’s reins to a tree just inside the grounds and walked up the dark winding drive to the gravel sweep in front of the house. I would have ridden right to the porch steps except that I wasn’t planning to leave by the way I’d come.

  The gravel crunched beneath my feet. The slim windows watched me as I walked toward them.

  I rang the bell, waited, and when there was no reply I pounded on the wood with my fists until Mr. Timothy O’Shaughnessy, the gombeen man’s brother, opened the door a crack and peeped out.

  “Why, it’s Timothy O’Shaughnessy!” I said. “And the top of the morning to you, Timmy! I never expected to see you in a butler’s coat!”

  He tried to retreat, but I shoved my foot in the door.

  “If it’s Lord de Salis you’re wanting, Maxwell Drummond—”

  “Lord de Salis!” I exclaimed. “Whatever gave you that idea? No, Timmy, it’s not Lord de Salis I’m wanting. I’ve come to see Mr. MacGowan.”

  Chapter Seven

  I

  HE CAME TO THE library, where I was waiting for him. I never heard his soft footsteps. All I heard was the door opening, and as I spun around I found us face to face at last, MacGowan my enemy, my nemesis, the man who had ruined me and taken everything I had.

  He waited by the door. I had forgotten how ordinary he looked. We were much the same height, but he was slimmer than I was and he had thinning brown hair and colorless eyes.

  From the way he stood I knew he was armed.

  “Welcome back,” he said.

  He was smiling a thin smile with his thin mouth so I smiled too. But I said nothing.

  “A pardon from the Queen, I understand,” he said. “I’ve already had word from Dublin that your land’s to be restored to you in full. You made powerful friends in America, didn’t you?”

  “How news travels!” I said.

  “Powerful friends and a well-bred bitch of a mistress. You’ve come up in the world, Drummond! I suppose I should congratulate you.”

  I saw he wanted me to get angry, so I laughed, sat down on the edge of the desk and picked up a heavy glass paperweight with a casual movement of my hand. “So you still remember Sarah,” I said. “I thought you might have forgotten her by this time.”

  “I have a long memory.”

  “So have I,” I said, tossing the paperweight gently up and down as I watched him, “and so has she.”

  He had closed the door, but now he opened it again and made a gesture toward the hall. “I’m touched that you called to pay your respects,” he said, “but now if you have nothing else to say I’ll ask you to leave. Mr. Rathbone, the London attorney, has a copy of your leasehold, and when a further copy has been made it will be sent to you. As for your land, you can do as you like with it, but take my advice and settle down quietly, for if you make trouble I’ll have you rammed back into jail so fast your head’ll spin off your shoulders. Good day.”

  I went on tossing the paperweight “A brave speech,” I said courteously, “but what a waste of breath!”

  He left the door and moved a shade closer. “Leave this house at once, if you please.”

  “Well mannered too,” I said. “I like that”

  “I’ll give you five seconds to get out.”

  “T-t-t!” I said reprovingly.

  “One … two … three …” He had maneuvered himself cleverly behind a high-backed chair. Leaving the desk, I strolled along the nearest book-lined wall. “… four … five …”

  He drew his gun, but I threw the paperweight first. He was slow on the draw by American standards, and I had plenty of time.

  He dodged, but before he had recovered I was on top of him and twisting the gun out of his hands.

  Jesus, but he was strong! I knocked him off balance and grabbed at his forearm, but his wrist was stiff as a ramrod. He chopped at me with his free hand, but he was already reeling against the wall, and by clinging to his wrist I locked that dangerous free arm behind his back. He kicked and shoved—and still his wrist was like steel. I tightened the lock on his other arm. By this time we were both gasping and my heart was thudding in my chest.

  The steel bent at last. He gave a shout of pain and the gun clattered to the floor.

  Shoving him away, I tripped him and drew my own gun.

  “Not a word,” I said, “or you’ll get a bullet between the eyes.”

  He was silent. He was still breathing hard and his eyes shone with rage.

  I retrieved his gun and tucked it into my belt.

  “Get up.”

  “You bloody fool,” he said. “I’ll see you back in jail before the day’s out.”

  “I’ll see you on the road to hell first!” I said, speaking violently to make sure he thought I might kill him on the spot. “Get over to that desk.”

  “What for?” he said, trying to gain time while he figured out a way to rush me.

  “Do you have a manservant?”

  “Do I have a … What the devil’s that got to do with anything?”

&
nbsp; “Do you have a manservant?”

  “I do now, as a matter of fact, yes. But why—”

  “Then sit down at that desk or I swear to God I’ll hurt you in places where not even that manservant of yours would think to look.”

  He recognized the threat he had once made to Sarah. His face became very still.

  “Well, are you going to sit down or …”

  He sat down.

  “That’s better,” I said, lounging against the marble mantel. “Now, you’re going to write a little letter. Take a sheet of that notepaper on the side there and pick up the pen.”

  After a pause he did as he was told.

  “To the Honorable Thomas de Salis and the Honorable David de Salis,” I said, “St James’s Square, London. Gentlemen …” I stopped to give him time to write. His pen squeaked across the thick paper. “I am writing to you to offer my resignation from the post of agent for Lord de Salis on the estate of Cashelmara.”

  He laughed, but I cut him short. “Go on.”

  He scratched away again, but he was smiling.

  “Lord de Salis is too ill for me to approach him on this subject,” I said, “so I have no choice but to offer my resignation to you, his brothers. I have been considering leaving Cashelmara for some time, as my lord no longer appreciates my services as he used to and now his drunkenness has reached such a pass that I can do no more but leave as soon as possible. In God’s name I urge you to come and save him from himself. I shall be leaving Cashelmara at two o’clock this afternoon and will be traveling with my father to Scotland, where my wife will join me as soon as she has settled matters at Clonagh Court. I remain, gentlemen, your humble and respectful servant …”

  He hooted with laughter again. “You don’t really imagine I’ll leave, do you?” he said, still scratching away carelessly with the pen.