Cashelmara

by Susan Howatch

  “Why don’t we go?” I said to Kerry.

  It hadn’t taken me long to discover that matters at Cashelmara were worse than ever, and I dreaded being caught in the middle of a conflict I was powerless to resolve.

  “I think I really have a duty to take Kerry home for a visit before we finally settle down,” I said to my mother.

  “I didn’t go home for a visit after I was married!” said my mother.

  “But, Mama, that was years ago when crossing the Atlantic was more hazardous. Travel is easier nowadays, and people think less of it than they used to.”

  “I suppose this entire scheme is Kerry’s idea,” said my mother, and although I denied it she refused to believe me.

  “I do think it’s a little selfish of you, my dear,” she said to Kerry that night at dinner. “I don’t think you should drag Ned off to America when he’s obviously so pleased to be home again.”

  Kerry went red.

  “Mama …” I began.

  “We wouldn’t go if you’d only move to Clonagh Court!” Kerry blurted out and then jumped up and rushed out of the room.

  “Well, really!” said my mother in a fury.

  “Mama, you’ve only yourself to blame,” I said, red in the face myself by this time. “If you made more effort to be civil to Kerry, she wouldn’t pass such remarks. Excuse me, please.” And I too abandoned my dinner.

  I found Kerry sobbing noisily in the depths of our fourposter bed. At last she managed to say, “I don’t want to go to America. I’d rather stay here and have a baby, but I’ll never have a baby if I stay here because your mother makes me too upset.”

  It took me at least five minutes to understand what she meant, but finally I was able to piece together an explanation. We had been married nine months, there was no sign of a baby and she had been so terrified she was “barren” that she had dredged up enough courage to seek advice from Aunt Madeleine, who had always been kind to her. Aunt Madeleine had told her that young girls often didn’t become pregnant as easily as the world thought they did and that sometimes a girl who married at fifteen might have to wait a year or two before conceiving, even though there was no physical reason why she shouldn’t have a baby. Aunt Madeleine had said it was God’s way of ensuring that a girl was grown up in mind as well as in body before she assumed the responsibilities of motherhood.

  “Aunt Madeleine said I should live quietly and not travel or worry about anything,” said Kerry, weeping. “She said if I lived a quiet calm life there would be more chance of the baby coming.”

  “Well, that problem’s easily solved,” I said, kissing her. “It only takes about a week to sail to America, and once you’re there you can be as quiet and calm as you like. We’ll leave for Boston as soon as possible.”

  But to my astonishment and anger money again proved to be a problem. Drummond explained that the difficulties with the estate were making my income erratic, and he suggested I postpone the visit to America until spring.

  “That’s quite out of the question, I’m afraid,” I said abruptly and wrote to Uncle David to borrow money for our fares. Fortunately Uncle David was in a generous mood. His latest detective story had been rejected by the publishers (his stories had never yet appeared in print), but his wife thought the book was wonderfully clever and this compensated for the rejection. There was also the discreet hint in the letter that a baby was expected in the new year.

  “Lucky Harriet,” sighed Kerry, but she was in such good spirits about the prospect of returning home that she couldn’t be despondent for long. We sailed from Ireland in late October, and I was so glad to leave that it no longer shamed me that I was running away from difficulties I couldn’t resolve.

  I’ll think about them later was all I said to myself and dug my buried head a little deeper in the sand.

  IV

  It was 1890, the year of the downfall of Charles Stewart Parnell. In November his mistress’s husband was granted a divorce, and on the first of December he was deposed from the leadership of the Irish Party.

  “I said all along he was finished,” said Phineas Gallagher over our glasses of port as he offered me one of his fat cigars.

  “Mr. Drummond will be upset,” I said, accepting the cigar and lighting it.

  “If Max has a grain of sense he’ll learn from Parnell’s mistakes. Max ain’t got no business living openly with your mother and running your estate like he owned it, Ned. It’s humiliating for my daughter and it’s humiliating for you, and if he don’t see that he’s not the man I thought he was. People in that valley of yours might stand a rent raise or two because they’re used to abuse from their landlord, but they’ll not stand for one of their own number lording it over them while he lives in adultery. No decent bunch of Irish folk would stand for it. It’s immoral.”

  “Yes.” I wanted to change the subject because I didn’t want him to find out exactly how powerless I was to stop Drummond. “But it’s a shame about Parnell, isn’t it? He was a great man and did so much for Ireland. Why, he was the first Irish leader who literally forced the English to listen to him at Westminster.”

  “You could make the Saxons listen to you,” said Phineas Gallagher. “Don’t you have a seat at Westminster?”

  “Yes, I suppose I do. In the House of Lords. I hadn’t really thought about it before.”

  “Ah, it’s a lovely leader you’d be!” sighed my father-in-law, filling up my glass of port. “A fine upstanding young baron, well spoken and smart. Sure it would cost a little more money to live in London part of the year, but there are Irish people this side of the water who’d see you didn’t starve.”

  “I know what a generous man you are, sir,” I said, smiling at him, “but if I ever decide to work for Ireland at Westminster I’d rather do so modestly, using my own money. I’ve discovered I hate to be in debt.”

  “This wouldn’t be incurring a debt, Ned! It would be graciously accepting the good will of your fellow countrymen!”

  I smiled but said nothing.

  It was my father-in-law who laughed. “Jesus, you’ve got an old head on young shoulders!” he exclaimed, and then he added oddly without explaining himself, “It’s too bad about Max Drummond. I liked him.”

  I wanted to say that I had once liked him too, but the words refused to be said. I tried to think of something else before I could become too upset, and fortunately I soon had news of another kind to divert me. When I got to bed that night Kerry confided in me that she was sure—positively sure—she was pregnant.

  “Already!” I was impressed.

  “It must have happened just before we left Cashelmara.”

  “I’m glad about that,” I said, although there was no reason why it should matter where the baby had been conceived. But somehow I felt conception at Cashelmara must make him more of an Irishman than an American.

  “I must write to Aunt Madeleine at once!” said Kerry happily and began to talk about cribs and little silk baby dresses.

  I was dismayed to find myself wondering selfishly how much life would now change, but I clamped the thought down and tried to be as happy as Kerry was. I was surprised when I found this difficult. I could accept the fact that the baby existed, yet somehow its existence remained utterly unreal to me. I kept telling myself I was going to have a son and heir, but after I had told myself that half a dozen times I didn’t know what to tell myself next. I could understand how Kerry had become so deeply involved with the idea because the baby was growing in her body, but it wasn’t growing in mine, and an emotional response to the situation seemed to be entirely lacking in me. I was much troubled by this indifference since I felt sure it must be wrong, but I was too ashamed to tell anyone about it.

  “I suppose we can’t go to bed together any more now,” I said, trying not to sound gloomy.

  “Can’t we?” said Kerry, horrified. “Oh, that can’t be true! Who told you that?”

  I couldn’t remember. Groping through my memories of the distant past, I saw my mother
lying palely on a chaise longue before retiring to a bedroom she didn’t share with my father.

  “I’ll ask Ma,” said Kerry. “She’ll know.”

  Mrs. Gallagher knew a great deal. She told Kerry that husbands were just as important as babies, more important, since a decent girl couldn’t have a baby without one, and that Kerry must never forget that. She said I must be petted and made a fuss of, and that if I “wanted my way” I could have it provided I was careful and considerate. She told Kerry not to listen if any doctor gave her advice to the contrary and said that so long as we both behaved with common sense there would be no danger of a miscarriage.

  I was much cheered by this, and when in February I told Uncle Thomas the good news I was even able to sound genuinely pleased. Uncle Thomas was engaged in further studies at the medical school which formed a part of Harvard University, and he had taken an apartment in Cambridge, the town near Boston where Harvard is situated. I had never entirely understood before about Uncle Thomas’s profession. I knew he was a doctor, but he was not like Dr. Cahill or indeed any other doctor whom I had met in the past. He had no exclusive consulting rooms in Harley Street. Indeed he saw no patients at all. His work was conducted in the laboratories attached to Guy’s Hospital in London, and until his decision to go to America he had been concerned with investigating the diseases found in people who were already dead.

  “But I became tired of morbid anatomy,” he explained to me in his little sitting room that overlooked the Charles River, “and so I decided to turn to clinical pathology instead, the investigation of disease—and health—in living people. There are different areas of pathology, you know, and our knowledge is increasing substantially every year. The exciting part is that although men have been curious about the study of disease for centuries, the modern science of pathology has really existed only for the past thirty years. I was always fascinated by the war against disease. David could never understand it, but I used to tell him my cases were like his detective stories—finding the clues, isolating the cause of death, solving the puzzle. But I’ve had enough of corpses. I’ve made my mark in London as a specialist in morbid anatomy, and now I want new fields to conquer.”

  He explained he could have studied clinical pathology in London, but he preferred to come to America—“Because after all I’m half American, just as you are,” he said, “and when it occurred to me the other day that I was almost thirty and knew next to nothing about my mother’s country I thought now would be as good an opportunity as any to find out more. It was David’s wedding that finally made me decide to come. I realized I must spend my year in America while I’m still a bachelor and have the freedom to do as I please.”

  “Will you go to New York?” I asked, thinking of my estranged Uncle Charles, who was his cousin. I had been toying with the idea of making peace with Uncle Charles, but I knew such a move would infuriate my mother, so I had never communicated with him.

  “Yes, I intend to go down in the spring to see the Marriotts. Will you still be here then?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “We must be back in Ireland by that time because of Kerry’s health.” And I told him about the baby.

  After he had made the usual kind remarks he said, “You’ll need money more than ever now, Ned. We’ll have to do something about Drummond, you know. It’s absurd that you have to go around borrowing from your relatives while Drummond and your mother live in such style in your own home.”

  “When I’m twenty-one—”

  “Can you really afford to wait till then? God only knows what sort of a wreck Drummond and your mother will have made of Cashelmara by the time you’re twenty-one! I think I’ll write to David and see what he suggests. I have no desire whatsoever to go to court, but—”

  “No litigation,” I said a shade too loudly. “I must wait till I’m twenty-one.”

  “Ned, you keep repeating that phrase as if it were a magic incantation, but what exactly are you going to do when you’re twenty-one?”

  “Dismiss Drummond and tell my mother she must move to Clonagh Court.”

  “And if she refuses to go? Are you sure you won’t wind up going to court anyway in order to get rid of Drummond?”

  “I… I’ll think about that later. When the time comes.”

  “Ned,” said Uncle Thomas gently, “the time has come. The time is now.”

  I shook my head violently and said nothing.

  “Ned, what is it? What’s the matter? You’re scared stiff of Drummond, aren’t you? Why? You surely don’t still suspect him of murdering your father?”

  “I know he murdered him,” I said, fighting a terrible desire to cry, and told him how I had obtained the consent for my marriage.

  He was so appalled he couldn’t speak.

  “So I can’t do anything,” I said. “I’m too afraid of harming my mother. He’ll drag her down with him, I know he will, and I can’t have that. My own mother …” I couldn’t go on.

  At last he managed to say, “I should have insisted on an autopsy, but … well, I couldn’t believe Madeleine would have made a mistake and she was so certain—so absolutely certain—”

  “It is difficult to believe that Aunt Madeleine can be imperfect enough to make a mistake occasionally,” I agreed. My voice was calm again, far calmer than his.

  “And there would have been such a scandal even if the autopsy had merely confirmed the diagnosis. I suppose I deliberately chose to look the other way.”

  He still sounded so appalled that I said hastily, “You didn’t look the other way, Uncle Thomas. You considered the possibility of poison and rejected it. That’s not the same thing at all.”

  “No, it’s worse,” he said grimly. “It all goes to prove that doctors aren’t to be trusted when they apply their knowledge to their own families. They’re swayed by all kinds of preconceived notions and prejudices which distort their judgment. My God, how could I have been so unprofessional? I should have insisted on a proper inquiry instead of listening to David’s Borgia theories and accepting unquestioningly the diagnosis of a woman who has had no formal education in medicine.”

  “Well, thank God you didn’t insist on an autopsy,” I said, “for where would my mother be now if you had?”

  “Yes, but … Ned, something must be done. If we can’t force the issue publicly in court, we must do it privately, by threats.”

  “There’s no way in which we can do that,” I said. “I’ve thought about it day after day, and there’s no solution. We have no lever with Drummond. I was able to threaten him about my marriage because I made him believe I would do anything to marry Kerry, even ruin my mother. But those were exceptional circumstances. He knows that normally I’d do nothing to harm her.”

  “Then there must be something else we can do.” He began to pace up and down the room, and the winter sunlight, shining palely into the room, flashed rhythmically on his thick glasses. “We must prove Drummond’s guilt and your mother’s innocence,” he said at last. “We must be quite certain before we go to the police that they won’t make a mistake.”

  “They’re bound to think she had knowledge of the murder after the fact.”

  “‘After the fact’ is a very different matter to ‘before the fact’ And there are mitigating circumstances—her infatuation with Drummond—any good counsel could get her off scot-free.” He snapped his fingers and spun around to face me. “Of course! David’s the answer! God, I never thought I’d be grateful that David has a monumental imagination and a passion for detective stories! We’ll send him to Cashelmara and he can make a secret investigation of all the circumstances surrounding your father’s death. If he can prove that the poison was administered after your mother left Clonagh Court that day—”

  “But supposing Drummond poisoned the food she took to Papa?” I said. “Mama took some blackberry cordial and a cake to Clonagh Court as gifts. She wanted to be pleasant to him so they could discuss the custody question without quarreling.”

  “Perhaps
David can find a servant who can testify that the cake and cordial were never touched. That would mean the poison came from another source which with any luck we can link to Drummond exclusively. It’s an idea worth trying anyway, and if anyone is well suited to such an investigation it’s David.”

  I did try to share his optimism, but I was too frightened. I should have felt better after unburdening all the fears I had kept to myself for so long, but I felt worse. I felt I no longer had any control over the future, and that night I dreamt that Cashelmara had been razed to the ground and that Drummond was walking from the burning ruins to destroy me.

  In panic I turned all my attention to Kerry. It was time to go home before her pregnancy entered the last critical months, but before we finally sailed at the beginning of April I had postponed our departure twice on the excuse that the Atlantic would still be swept by winter storms, and Mrs. Gallagher said if I postponed it a third time Kerry would have to remain in Boston until after the baby arrived.

  The last thing I wanted to do was endanger Kerry’s health, and I was anxious for my son to be born at Cashelmara. Screwing up all my courage, I faced the ordeal of going home.

  Uncle David had written to say he had arranged to visit Cashelmara in mid-March, but I heard nothing further from him before we sailed.

  “All will be well,” said Uncle Thomas, embracing me before I left, but although I wanted desperately to believe him I couldn’t.

  I was certain all wouldn’t be well. I didn’t see how it could be.

  And I was terrified.

  V

  I hadn’t told my mother Kerry was pregnant and had asked Aunt Madeleine to keep the news a secret. I wouldn’t have told Aunt Madeleine except that Kerry had been so anxious that she should know.

  “Why don’t you want your mother to find out about the baby?” Kerry had demanded, but I had merely said that I had wanted to tell her such exciting news in person.

  That satisfied Kerry, but in fact I had no idea why I should have felt so reticent. However, I found out soon enough when we stepped at last into the hall at Cashelmara and my mother came quickly downstairs to greet us. One glance at the expression on her face as she saw Kerry’s figure was enough to confirm my instinct that the news would be unwelcome to her.