Cashelmara

by Susan Howatch

  “Father,” I said, “I’m interested in attending your services for a month or so. Could you ask my mother to give her permission, please?”

  My mother, fortunately, was in Father Donal’s debt, and I knew she would find it difficult to refuse his request. He had not only helped her get Drummond out of jail but had stood by her afterward when she had been forced to remain at Cashelmara.

  “You don’t want to be a Roman Catholic, do you, Ned?” was my mother’s alarmed response to the request. As if to make amends for her life with Drummond, she had become very conservative in all other matters, and as far as she was concerned it simply wasn’t done for a young baron like myself to turn papist.

  “I don’t know whether I want to be a Catholic or not,” I said truthfully. “That’s exactly what I’m anxious to find out.”

  But my mother continued to disapprove, and eventually I had to seek help from Aunt Madeleine, who, true to form, sallied forth from the dispensary with crusading zeal and told my mother to be grateful I showed any religious inclinations whatsoever.

  “The boy must be encouraged,” said my aunt, giving me her fondest smile, and the next Sunday my mother meekly gave me her permission to go to Mass.

  I liked the Mass very much, but I liked the journey to and from church better. However, after a month even the privacy of the carriage seemed inadequate, and I began to plot another picnic in the ruined cabin. One afternoon I raided the pantry, Kerry pleaded a headache to avoid my mother’s supervision and half an hour later I was spreading my jacket on the cabin’s earthen floor.

  Some unknown time later Kerry said in an agony of despair, “Ned, I know some people stay chaste for years and years, but I’ve been chaste for nearly six whole weeks now and I feel as if I’m going to burst any minute. What are we going to do? Please, Ned—help me or I’ll be a gone coon, I swear it!”

  I was in no fit state to reply. To extract every ounce of pleasure from being close to her, I had stripped to the waist and had coaxed Kerry by a mixture of bullying and wheedling to unbutton her blouse. The days when we had giggled together as children had never seemed more remote.

  “Ned, say something!” She pushed away my fingers, which had been prying distractedly at her bodice, and tried without success to roll out of my reach. “What are we going to do?”

  I made the only suggestion that presented itself to me.

  “Oh, but I couldn’t!” she said. “That’s a mortal sin, I’m sure of it, and I couldn’t possibly have any virginity left afterward, and Ma and Pa would just kill themselves if they ever found out.”

  “It wouldn’t be a mortal sin if we got married!”

  “But I thought you didn’t want to get married!”

  “I’ll do anything you like,” I said. “I’ll get married or stand on my head or jump in the lough. But let me—”

  “Oh Jesus!” said Kerry.

  I started to kiss her again. I still couldn’t get to grips with the bodice. It was worse than a chastity belt.

  “Would you really marry me?” said Kerry.

  “Of course.” Something ripped. I heard the faint crack of whalebone succumbing.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Oh good,” said Kerry, pushing me away again. “I think I can just wait till then.”

  “I can’t,” I said, triumphing at last over the appalling underwear and breaking out in a sweat from head to toe.

  “Well, maybe I can’t either,” said Kerry. “Oh, but I must. Holy Mary, save me from sinning. Amen. Oh, Ned, that feels so good. Holy Mary, save me from—well, perhaps it doesn’t matter. After all, Pa said people can be just as good as married, and if your ma and Mr. Drummond can do it …”

  Everything finished, the strait-jacket of excitement, the blazing pressure, the superhuman surge of power in every muscle of my body. Even the sweat on my back seemed to freeze. With a shiver I rolled away from her and lay on my side facing the wall.

  When I looked at Kerry again I saw she was buttoning her blouse. Her hands were shaking. The buttons kept slipping between her fingers.

  I said in a calm, sensible voice, “Don’t be upset. There’s no need. We’re going to get married.”

  She nodded, but I saw she didn’t understand.

  “I mean we’re going to do things the proper way,” I said. “I won’t touch you until you’re my wife, but don’t worry because we’ll be married very soon.”

  She stared at me. Her eyes were shining again. She looked bright and fresh and pretty.

  “We’ll have a proper engagement,” I said, “and a proper wedding. Father Donal can marry us, and we can have a nuptial Mass at the church in Clonareen.”

  “Ned!” She was too overjoyed to say more. Flying into my arms, she wept over my chest while I squeezed her until we were both gasping for breath.

  “I’m not going to treat you as Drummond treats my mother,” I said.

  We talked all the way back to Cashelmara. Kerry said she was going to have five bridesmaids, her sisters and mine, and I said we would go to Paris for the honeymoon. I wanted six children and Kerry wanted eight, so we decided to have seven. We talked about Cashelmara too. I said when I was twenty-one I was going to remodel the chapel into a Catholic church and paint the beautiful circular hall of the house blue and white like Wedgwood pottery. Kerry said she’d have new curtains in every room and fresh pictures on the walls and flowers everywhere.

  “And lots of those nice religious statues,” I said, “and shamrock-green wallpaper. We’ll have levees, parties, balls. We can hire musicians from Dublin, and all the world will come to see us and Cashelmara’ll be the finest house in the Western world!”

  “Lovely! Oh, I can almost hear the music!”

  “Strauss waltzes,” I said, “quadrilles, gallops—”

  “And polkas! Oh, Ned, I love to polka!”

  “—polkas, jigs, reels—”

  “Irish music!”

  “Irish music and Irish songs!” I cried, seizing her by the waist and whirling her around the lawn.

  Far away the side door opened and my mother stepped onto the terrace.

  “Ned!”

  “Yes?” I called and hissed to Kerry, “Leave us alone when we reach the house and I’ll talk to her about our marriage.”

  My mother was saying in a clear voice, “I should like to speak to you for a moment, if you please.”

  “Yes—coming!”

  We reached the terrace.

  “Quite recovered from your headache, I see, Kerry,” said my mother. “That didn’t last long, did it?”

  “No, Lady de Salis,” said Kerry. “Lady de Salis, if you’ll be kind enough to excuse me …”

  “Very well. Ned, come upstairs, please.”

  “Yes, Mama,” I said obediently.

  In the boudoir my mother asked me to sit down.

  “I had intended for some time to say a few words to you on a certain subject,” she said, speaking quickly, as if she had learned a speech and was determined to recite it before she forgot a single word, “and when I saw you … disporting yourself on the lawn, I realized I must speak to you without delay. Ned, I’ve noticed—Maxwell and I have both noticed—that you seem to be a little too … friendly toward Kerry nowadays. Of course we’re glad that the two of you are so companionable, but I feel it’s only proper that you shouldn’t spend time alone with her in future. I don’t want to be unreasonable, but Kerry has now reached an age where she should be strictly chaperoned. Of course I’m secure in the knowledge that the two of you are scarcely more than children, but … dear me, I’m afraid I’m phrasing this very badly, and I don’t want you to misunderstand. Believe me, darling, I do trust you implicitly to behave as a gentleman should, but I know what it is to be exposed to temptation, and … well, perhaps Maxwell should have a word with you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said.

  “Darling, please don’t be so insulted! I know you yourself would do no wrong, but people
might think—”

  “What do you care what people think?” I said before I could stop myself.

  She bit her lip. “There’s no need to be rude, Ned,” she said in a quiet voice that made me feel ashamed. “Believe me, Kerry’s reputation—any young girl’s reputation—is so important. It can affect her entire future. When one is older and in sadder circumstances one can perhaps dare to defy the conventions, but when a girl’s growing up it’s vital that her conduct should be exemplary.”

  “Of course it is, Mama,” I said. “That’s why I know that you’ll be delighted when I tell you my news. Kerry and I are going to get married.”

  There was a silence. My mother was struck dumb, but I wasn’t surprised. I supposed it must always seem too good to be true when the matchmakers’ wishes coincide so exactly with those of the couple they’re trying to unite.

  “I thought the wedding could be in December,” I said after allowing her a moment to recover, “on my sixteenth birthday. That would give the Gallaghers time to come over from America and for you and Kerry to arrange the wedding. By the way, I’ve decided to be a Roman Catholic, so I’m going to ask Father Donal to marry us at Clonareen.” Some element in my mother’s expression struck me as odd, and my heart sank. Surely she wasn’t going to make a fuss about me becoming a Catholic. “What’s wrong?” I said warily and then had a glimmer of enlightenment. “Oh, I suppose you think we’re too young. Well, if we’re going to be married eventually anyway, why shouldn’t we be married sooner rather than later?”

  “Eventually?” My mother’s voice was very faint.

  “Come, Mama, don’t imagine I’m still in ignorance about the arrangement Mr. Drummond made with Mr. Gallagher!”

  “Oh, but …” She had to sit down. She was very pale. “Ned, that was nothing. I mean, it was of no consequence. All Maxwell promised was that Kerry should live with us for a while and learn to be a lady. He never promised you’d marry Kerry—how could he? No doubt Mr. Gallagher had his hopes, of course—”

  “And so did Mr. Drummond,” I said. “I understand there was money involved.”

  She went paler than ever. “I know nothing about that, but if there was such an arrangement I’m sure Maxwell did it just to please Mr. Gallagher. Mr. Gallagher was the only one who could get him the pardon, you see, and of course we both wanted to please him. But, Ned, you don’t truly imagine I ever wanted you to marry into a family like the Gallaghers, do you? Naturally I’m quite opposed to you marrying anyone when you’re no more than a child, but even later I could hardly approve of you marrying Kerry! She’s so far beneath you socially, so—so totally inadequate to be the wife of a man in your station of life! I know she can’t help coming from such a vulgar, shoddyite family, but—”

  “I see,” I said. “You and Mr. Drummond cultivate the Gallaghers for their money and their influence and then once you have what you want you conveniently forget about a bargain you never had any intention of keeping. You do all this and yet still you have the incredible audacity to tell me it’s the Gallaghers who are vulgar and shoddy!”

  “Ned!” The color flooded back to her face as she stood up. “Apologize at once! How dare you be so insolent!”

  “I think you should apologize to me,” I said. “You’ve lied to me, concealed the truth from me, allowed your lover to auction me as if I were no better than a stick of furniture—”

  She slapped me twice across the face. I stopped. My skin was smarting and I reached up to touch it with my fingers. When I looked at her again I saw she was breathing hard, as if she had been running, and her eyes were the eyes of a stranger.

  A lump formed in my throat. I turned away.

  “Listen to me,” she said in a low voice that shook with rage. “You’re not marrying that girl either now or at any time in the future. I absolutely forbid it, and later you’ll look back and be grateful to me. Meanwhile you’d better go away to school. I’ll write to Thomas and ask him to arrange your admission to Harrow immediately.”

  “I’m not leaving Cashelmara.”

  “You’ll do as you’re told!” Before I could reply she flung open the door. “Maxwell!”

  Her voice echoed strongly down the corridor and reverberated along the curved walls of the gallery.

  I moved, bumping into a table, knocking an ornament to the floor. “Mama, I’ve nothing to say to Mr. Drummond.”

  “Get back into the room!”

  Drummond’s footsteps rang in the hall. “Sarah, did you call me?”

  “Yes—please come and help me for a moment”

  He ran up the stairs. I had backed into the boudoir before he reached the gallery.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  “I’m having the most dreadful time with Ned. He seems to have gone completely insane.” She lowered her voice, but I still heard snatches of the conversation. “All that wretched girl’s fault … wants to get married … no, not later—now! Rude, hurtful and disagreeable … at my wits’ end … please speak to him … needs a man, someone who can speak to him as a father would …”

  I had to resist the urge to escape through the door into my mother’s bedroom. It would never do to look as though I were running away. Pausing instead beside a chair, I rested my hands stiffly on the upholstered ridge of its high back.

  Drummond came into the room. He wore a gentleman’s suit, one of several he had ordered for Phineas Gallagher’s visit, and in the pocket of his velvet waistcoat was the gold watch he had won at poker. He had slicked back his hair, trimmed his whiskers and even grown a small mustache. I tried to remember the ugly, untidy but joyous Irishman who had flung his hat in the air and bought the violets for my mother, but the memory had blurred until it seemed no more than a dream of long ago.

  “Well, Ned,” he said, smiling at me as he closed the door, “it’s a fine fuss your mother’s making and no mistake. What’s all this tarradiddle about getting married?”

  “It’s not a subject I care to discuss with you,” I said.

  “Nor I with you,” he answered, still smiling, “but since your mother’s given the royal command it seems we’ve no choice but to try. Listen, you mustn’t mind your mother. She never did care for the Gallaghers, and what’s more she can’t help herself, not after being brought up in that palace on Fifth Avenue. But if it’s my opinion you’re wanting, I think you’ve got good taste. The Gallaghers are a fine happy family, and those girls have been brought up properly and sure Kerry’s the sort of girl who would make any man sit up and blink twice. So you see, I’m not agreeing with your mother when she says you shouldn’t marry Kerry. Indeed you should marry her—when you’re past twenty-one and your own master, when you’ve seen a little of the world and learned more of what there is to learn. But don’t be marrying before you’re twenty-one, Ned. I did, and I often regretted it. If you’re smart enough to learn from other people’s mistakes, I hope you’ll not be too proud to learn from mine.”

  I said nothing, and when he saw I intended to remain silent he lighted a cigarette to give himself time to think. I remembered the time when this gesture had given me confidence. Now it seemed no more than a cheap trick.

  “I’ve no wish to quarrel with you, Ned,” he said at last. “We’ve been friends too long. Let me suggest a compromise which could suit us both better than any quarrel. Marry Kerry, but postpone it. Wait at least a year.”

  “I refuse to wait,” I said.

  “For what? For marriage? Or for a willing woman and all the pleasure you can take?”

  I turned aside. “I see no point in discussing this further.”

  “You don’t have to wait for that, you know, Ned. Wait for marriage and wait for Kerry, but there’s no need to wait for anything else.”

  “I’m not interested in anything else. If you’ll excuse me—”

  “You only say that because you hate to admit that any advice I give you might possibly be the best advice you ever had! Come, Ned, grow up a little—be honest with yourself!”
/>
  He was standing in front of the door that led into the passage, so I moved toward the door that led into my mother’s bedroom. But he stopped me. He put his thick, coarse fingers on my arm and pushed me back very smoothly against the wall.

  “Don’t lose your temper with me,” he said, still speaking evenly though I knew he was very angry. “You’re surely not that much of a fool. I’m on your side, can’t you see? I’m trying to help you. Listen, there’s a woman called Mrs. Costelloe who lives beyond Clonareen. I used to visit her sometimes long ago. She’d be far too old for you, of course, but I hear her niece who lives with her is all hospitality if she sees a young man she fancies. Ride with me to Clonareen tomorrow, and I’ll see the two of you are introduced.”

  I was conscious of nothing except an overpowering longing to escape.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, staring at the carpet.

  His fingers relaxed on my arm. He gave me a pat on the back. “I always knew you were a smart boy,” he said. “I’m glad you’re going to be sensible.”

  I escaped. I ran all the way down the passage to my room and just managed to reach the washstand before I vomited. I had no idea why I felt so ill, but I told myself it was because his suggestion of substituting a prostitute for Kerry was so revolting to me.

  It was only later that I could admit to myself how frightened I was of him, and it was only when I admitted my fear that I could ask myself if I still believed my father had died a natural death.

  II

  “We’re going out,” I said immediately after lunch the next day.

  “Ned, your ma’ll be furious! We’re going to start a new needlepoint design!”