“Yes. How often will I have to go to England to see Papa?”
“That hasn’t been arranged yet.”
“But it must have been arranged! Surely my father would never have agreed to cede the estate unless he’d established exactly when we would visit him and for how long!”
My mother looked uncomfortable. “Yes, there was an arrangement, but … Ned, I would really prefer not to talk about this just now.”
I stared at her. “But I’m going to see him for two weeks at Easter, aren’t I?”
“I’m still corresponding with your father about that.”
“But—”
“Ned, please! You have no right to cross-examine me like this! We’ll discuss it later.”
I went away without another word.
I had no appetite for lunch, and in the afternoon Mr. Watson said it was a pity I was still unable to distinguish between the House of York and the House of Lancaster. I never did understand the Wars of the Roses.
That evening Drummond came to dinner. He had come to dinner every night since my mother had returned with the news that the estate had been ceded to me, but although I dined with them I always retired to my room afterward, so I never knew how late he stayed. That night I was preparing to retreat as usual when Drummond, ignoring the port decanter, suggested we all go to the drawing room together for half an hour.
Drummond never normally ignored the port decanter.
“I do have an essay I must write for Mr. Watson,” I said.
“I’ll speak to Mr. Watson for you, darling,” said my mother. “I don’t think you should do schoolwork in the evenings anyway.”
I said nothing. We went to the drawing room. Drummond lighted a cigarette without asking my mother’s permission, and flinging himself down on the couch; he put his feet up on the smallest of the zebrawood quartetto tables.
“I hear you were asking your mother today about your Easter visit to England,” he said, blowing smoke at the ceiling.
“I didn’t mean to annoy her,” I said. “I only wanted to know where I stood.”
“Of course you did! And I’m sure you didn’t annoy her.”
I waited. She looked at Drummond. Drummond blew some more smoke at the ceiling.
“Well, it’s like this, Ned,” he said, saying what my mother had felt herself unable to say. “We’re thinking it’s best you didn’t go to England at present. Isn’t that the truth, sweetheart?”
“It would be so upsetting for you, Ned,” said my mother. “You know how upset you always become whenever your father’s name is mentioned. In the circumstances I think it would be wrong of me to allow you to go.”
I had suspected the truth for some hours, but hearing it still shocked me. “But my visit was all arranged,” I heard myself say. “You promised him I would go.”
She again looked at Drummond for help.
“Faith, Ned, be honest!” he exclaimed, “You don’t want to see your father, do you? Well, don’t act as if you did!”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t want to see him, but I’d got used to the idea because there seemed to be no alternative. And as far as I’m concerned there’s still no alternative. I can’t draw back now.”
“Ned, I do understand how you must feel,” said my mother, “but I really cannot, in all conscience, allow you to go.”
“You gave him your word!”
“She gave him no word that she isn’t morally entitled to break for the sake of you children,” said Drummond. He had taken his feet off the table and had tossed his cigarette into the fire. “And she gave him no word in writing. Your uncles were the ones who made all the promises, and as far as you’re concerned they have no right to promise anything, since they’re not your guardians. It’s for your mother to make the decisions, and your welfare’s got to come first.”
“Very well,” I said. “If that’s the case you’ll let me leave. It would upset me more to stay behind than it would upset me to go.”
“That’s hard to believe!” said Drummond.
“Just because you’re a liar you needn’t think everyone else tells lies too!”
“Ned!” my mother gasped.
“Mama, do you really think I’m so stupid that I can’t see what Mr. Drummond’s done? He’s tricked my father. You’ve both tricked him. You got him to cede me the estate by making promises you had no intention of keeping, and you used my uncles as cat’s-paws. It was a shoddy low-down piece of double-dealing, and I refuse to be a part of it by staying here in Ireland instead of going to England as you promised!”
Drummond was on his feet in a flash. “Sarah, leave us.”
“Maxwell, Ned didn’t mean—”
“Leave us!”
My mother backed trembling from the room.
“Right,” said Drummond the instant the door closed. “Get this straight. One: You never talk to either me or your mother like that again, do you understand? Never. Two: You do as you’re told and no nonsense. Three: You’re not seeing your father and you’re not to have any communication with him. There’s no reason why your mother should consent to allowing a boy your age to keep company with a pervert. Four: If you disobey any part of what I’ve just said, I’ll give you the best thrashing you’ve ever had in your life, and don’t think I wouldn’t dare because I would. I’ve always believed in going easy on a boy as far as possible, and you’d be the first to admit I’ve always gone easy on you, but when I draw the line I draw the line and I’m drawing it now, so you’d better think twice before you cross it. Have I made myself clear?”
After a pause I said, “Yes.”
He relaxed. “Just remember that your mother wants only to do what’s best for you,” he said, “and I want only to help her. Go to your room and think about what I’ve done. I’ve won you the right to stay at Cashelmara in peace without living in constant fear of being turned out or confronted with your father—and wasn’t this what you were always wanting? Well, in that case don’t turn on me now and call me names. Good night.”
“Good night, sir,” I said.
I found myself in the gallery above the hall. My mother was there waiting to speak to me, but I wouldn’t stop. I ran to my room and locked my door and sat in the dark on the edge of the bed.
After a while I wondered if I would feel better if I wrote to my father and apologized for not being able to visit him, but when I found pen and paper I realized I could write nothing. If my mother found out I had written to my father she might turn against me. Besides, supposing my father tried to use my letter against her? He might take it to the judge and the fighting would begin all over again. I didn’t want to live with my father, didn’t truly even want to see him. Drummond had been right. Drummond was always right, really. Best for my mother, best for me.
I suddenly realized I was very frightened of Drummond—but not of the Drummond who had thrown his hat in the air and bought the violets for my mother. I was frightened of the other Drummond, the Drummond of the Tiffany lamps and the loaded gun and the soft-spoken threats. I wondered what had happened to that gun. I knew he had brought it to Ireland, but it had disappeared because he was able to tell the District Inspector without a qualm that he had no gun of any kind.
More lies. Lies were never right; Nanny had always said that. Murder was never right either.
Better not to think of that.
At ten o’clock my mother tapped on my door and asked if she could come in.
“Are you still angry with me?” she said, and when I shook my head dumbly she took me in her arms and held me close.
“I’m sorry I upset you, Mama,” my voice said some time later.
“Oh darling, I know you didn’t mean it. You’ll apologize to Mr. Drummond, won’t you?”
I said I would, and as she smiled at me I noticed she was looking extraordinarily beautiful. As a child I had taken my mother’s beauty for granted, but now as I was leaving childhood I began to see her beauty with new eyes. By this time she was in her late thirties, but one didn�
�t think of age when looking at my mother. One thought instead of her hair, which was dark brown with such a fine sheen that it never looked dull but always seemed to glow when it caught the light. And one thought too of her skin, which wasn’t wanly pale, as so many ladies’ complexions were, but creamily pale, with the faintest suggestion of an olive tint. And lastly one thought of her figure, which even I, young as I was, knew instinctively was perfect despite the fact that she was no longer as slender as she had been when I was very small. That evening she was wearing an evening gown with the thinnest of shawls, and I could see the long line of her neck and the dark curve between her breasts.
“Good night, darling. Give me one last kiss.”
I offered my cheek dutifully. “Mama,” I said afterward, “if Mr. Drummond wanted to beat me, would you let him?”
“Well, I … that would depend, of course, on what you’d done, but if you deserved it—and I’m sure Maxwell wouldn’t do such a thing unless you deserved it—”
“I see.”
“He has a father’s responsibility toward you, Ned. It’s only reasonable that he should have a father’s rights to go with it.”
“Yes.”
She went away. I blew out the candle and crept into bed. Eventually dawn came and I fell asleep soon after five-thirty.
At nine Mr. Watson was asking me again about the Wars of the Roses, and outside in my father’s garden a steady rain was falling from desolate skies.
III
Yet in spite of the disastrous Easter, the summer was more fun than I had dared hope.
Denis Drummond came to stay.
He arrived at the end of April when I should have been in England, and although he stayed with his father at old MacGowan’s house, Drummond brought him to Cashelmara every day after breakfast. He was my age and had pale hair, freckles and not a word to say for himself. I felt sorry for him.
“Do you ride?” I asked hopefully. The chance to be friends with a boy my own age seemed too good to be missed, and I was determined to be hospitable.
He shook his head.
“Fish? Swim? Boat?”
He kept shaking his head.
“What would you like to do?”
“Go back to Dublin,” he said.
Drummond overheard and was furious. He gave Denis a long lecture to the effect that Denis should be grateful for the opportunity to spend time in the country on a gentleman’s estate instead of being cooped up in a dirty smelly city.
“And here’s Ned being so friendly to you!” said Drummond angrily. “Mend your manners and be civil to him this minute!”
Denis’s mouth drooped at the corners.
“Speak up and stop sulking!”
What astounded me most about this conversation was that it was so unlike Drummond. When he reprimanded me he did so when we were alone, and on the rare occasions when he had seen me as unhappy as Denis obviously was he had been kindness itself.
“We never did get on,” said Denis later as we sat on the edge of my bed drinking porter out of tooth mugs. “It’s disappointed he always was in me, and when I tried to please it made no difference.”
“He was awfully anxious to have you here,” I said, hoping to cheer him up. “He was so looking forward to it. You should have seen how disappointed he was when your brother didn’t come.”
“Max wouldn’t He’s twenty years old now, and it’s easy to stand up against your father when you’re twenty, I shouldn’t wonder. My sisters—the ones who aren’t married—they would have come, but my mother said no because of the immorality.” He blushed. “She said I wasn’t to go either, but I said I must. I wanted to please, but now I see I needn’t have troubled myself.”
“Well, I’m glad you came,” I said and offered him an unfinished packet of cigarettes that Drummond had left lying around some days ago.
After that we became friends, and presently I showed him how to ride, and he said horses were more fun than donkeys. We used to ride to Clonareen, and soon he was introducing me to his cousins among the O’Malleys. It was good to meet more boys of my own age, and we quickly formed what the Americans call a “gang,” a group who find one another’s company congenial and have interests in common. The others weren’t all O’Malleys. There was an O’Connor and an O’Flaherty and a Costelloe, and after a week or two some of the Joyces approached me with suitable tokens of friendship—a relic box and a fine spade—and asked to be admitted to the crowd. The O’Malleys at once said no, but I overruled that. The O’Malleys and the Joyces were always clinging to their absurd feud, and I didn’t see any sense in it.
Accordingly I allowed the Joyces to join us, but I made them swear all kinds of oaths to keep the peace and insisted that the O’Malleys make similar pledges. I did wonder how long they would stick to their vows, but there was no trouble. In their parents’ presence they had to pretend to hate each other, but when there was no one over eighteen in sight they were the best of friends.
There was a ruined cabin on the hillside above Cashelmara, and we made that our headquarters. We would meet there, go rabbit hunting or fishing and then return to the cabin to cook what we’d caught. I supplied the porter (Drummond had forbidden me to touch poteen before I was sixteen) and commissioned one of the boys to buy cigarettes from a tinker who traded in them. But the tinker passed through the valley only once a month, so cigarettes were scarce. Usually we would share one cigarette, taking one puff before passing it on, and once the cigarette was smoked to the butt the storytelling would begin as we sat around the fire. The stories were usually the kind where the wretched Irish were oppressed by the wicked English, but I used to talk about the American West, and they liked that. Custer’s Last Stand was a great favorite, and I invented all kinds of nonsense about Jesse James.
It was a grand summer. Of course I had to do my lessons, but Denis shared my tutor, and that made even the lessons fun. However, at last the lessons stopped, Mr. Watson went to England for his annual holiday and Denis and I were free to do as we pleased.
In the middle of August Denis’s mother wrote that she wanted him to come home.
“You don’t want to go, do you, Denis?” said Drummond, putting it the wrong way.
“If Ma’s begging, how can I refuse?” said Denis.
“Oh, and is it begging she is!” said Drummond, getting angry as usual. “She has Max and Bridget and Mary Kate. Why shouldn’t you be staying here a little longer?”
“Because I don’t want to,” said Denis, though I knew he did.
“That’s a bloody ungrateful thing to say!” said Drummond.
“What’s so ungrateful about wanting to go home?”
“This valley’s your home!”
“Not while my mother can’t come back and live here with you as she wants!”
“She wants no such thing!”
Denis, cowed, said nothing.
“The insolence of it!” said Drummond, still furious, but he gave up arguing and walked defeated from the room.
After Denis had gone Drummond said to my mother, “I don’t understand that boy,” and I thought, No, you don’t. I missed Denis very much, and the perplexing part was that I knew in spite of all his complaints that Drummond missed him too. I had been avoiding him as much as possible all summer, but now he turned to me for consolation, and it was harder to escape. I made excuses as often as I could, but sometimes I had no choice but to go out riding with him—not that I minded greatly, for he always took pains to be pleasant, but as time passed I found myself becoming increasingly ill at ease with him. This wasn’t simply because of his double-dealing with my father. I still resented that, but by that time I had put the incident behind me and resolved not to think of it. My father had been silent all summer, and my aunt Madeleine reported without comment that he had had another lapse into drunkenness.
“But you mustn’t worry about that, Ned,” said my mother. “There’s no need for you to worry.”
She glanced at Drummond as she spoke, and suddenl
y I knew I was ill at ease with Drummond because I was ill at ease with her. It was their relationship that I found increasingly disturbing. At first I could see no reason why it should suddenly begin to trouble me when I had long since decided to accept it, but dimly I came to realize that the change lay not in them but in me.
I was becoming abnormally sensitive to every nuance of my mother’s manner toward him. I intercepted every meaningful look, studied every smile, even noticed the exact style of each low-cut evening gown. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help myself. I became acutely aware of my mother’s physical attributes and thought lingeringly about them at odd moments during the day. Worst of all was at night when I would lie in bed and remember scenes from the past—Newport and Drummond’s rough sunburned hand resting grossly on my mother’s slim white arm; Drummond’s tiny apartment in New York, the bed creaking in the room next door as I lay awake on the couch in the darkness; the large room in Boston where Drummond and my mother had lain in bed together. Nowadays I was always thinking of them in bed together. I despised myself for thinking about such things, but my mind and self-esteem were ill-matched that summer.
“I must be sensible,” I said aloud to myself as I hurried uphill to the ruined cabin to meet my friends. “I won’t think about it.”
But then, worse still, I started noticing other women besides my mother. I noticed that Miss Cameron, the governess, had a flat chest and that Bridie, the scullery maid, didn’t, and I caught another glimpse of Aunt Madeleine’s legendary ankles when she came to Cashelmara to tea. And each time I found myself dwelling on these feminine attributes the memories would start flickering through my mind again, the creaking bed, the hand on the arm, all the intimate looks I had once been too young to read.
“Hell and damnation,” I would mutter to myself as I lay awake in the dark, and by an effort of will power that amounted almost to hypnosis I would blot the images from my mind. But when I fell asleep the dreams would be waiting for me, dreams sweating with obscenity, and in the morning I would tell myself in misery that there was nothing so wretchedly disgusting in all the world as being fourteen and a half with both one’s mind and one’s body living uncontrollable lives of their own.
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