The Lady

by Anne McCaffrey

  Catriona giggled, then took her turn to rinse out her buckets. By then her father had returned to the main yard with the barrow, and without a word all three began to wash the buckets from the top yard.

  “No need to splash,” her father admonished absently. She wasn’t splashing, nor was Mick, but it was part of the evening ritual, and she’d’ve missed it. It meant they were nearly done. And there was a scrumptious tea waiting to ease the pain of several more hours of schoolwork before she could go to bed. They piled the buckets, upended in the evening pyramid, checked to see that the grain barrel was tightly closed, and filed out, her father flicking off all but the gate lights.

  “G’night now, Catie,” Mick said, closing the iron gates and making sure the latch was tight. “G’night, Captain.” And he touched his finger to his cap brim.

  Her father waited until Mick had reached the gate to the drive before he turned off the last yard light.

  “Good night, Mick, and thank you.”

  Catriona wondered why her father always thanked the men in the evening, and never one of his own children, especially when they often had done as many chores in the day. She sighed as she followed her father across the courtyard to the back door and the beautiful two-story window at the back of the house that overlooked the stable yard. In any other house, such a window would have been in the front where the view across the fields to the convent and the sea would have been worth seeing.

  “Wash up now, Trina,” her father said, giving her a gentle shove toward the kitchen while he went on to the stairs, up to the master’s room at the front of Cornanagh House, which did have a view of the sea.

  3

  IT had been the most irritating of days for Isabel Carradyne. She had had to take three tablets to control the wretched tremors. First there had been that dreadful man from Aughrim with his mare, and Bridie chatting with him as if he were a long-lost relative. Alarmed by the noise of his thumping on the back door, Isabel had come to the landing. As soon as she had seen the old Wolsley and dilapidated horsebox attached to it in the courtyard, she’d known why he was here. She’d gone right back into her room and taken the first tablet. And stayed in her room until she was certain that his business had been concluded. That awful stallion of Michael’s made the most terrible noises when he was doing that.

  So Isabel hadn’t been downstairs to take in the post when it had come. Eithne had, but then, because she’d had to offer a cup of tea to that wretched man—out of courtesy, she’d said—she hadn’t brought it directly to Isabel. Surely Eithne must have seen that there were foreign letters—especially the one from Isabel’s son, Jack, who wrote infrequently enough so that each letter to his mother was doubly treasured. There had also been a letter for Michael from his brother Eamonn in Connecticut, but the one from her dear Jack had commanded her attention.

  And it had required the second capsule because she quite clearly felt his frustration and anxiety about the safety of his mission in Nicaragua. While Isabel had been terribly proud and pleased that Jack had chosen the Ministry of Christ for his vocation, she had always envisioned her son as Father John, serving an Irish parish. Clutching his letter in her hands, she had knelt at her prie-dieu in fervent prayer for his continued safety.

  Then, just when Isabel thought she had conquered her agitation, Catriona had called to her mind a tidal wave of humiliating memories that she had tried hard to bury along with the mortal remains of her overbearing, reprehensible, flamboyant father-in-law. And to think that he still so dominated the inhabitants of Cornanagh House that his youngest grandchild would recall him as her first memory.

  But she’d been too upset to insist that Catriona pick another topic. She’d gone to her room and taken the third dose. That and a lie-down had calmed her sufficiently before she had to dress for dinner.

  Now she had her fingers on the zip when she heard her husband’s tread on the stairs. She finished closing the dress. It didn’t do to give him any cause whatsoever, she thought apprehensively, although lately he had abstained.

  “You’ve a letter from the States,” she said without turning as he entered the room. “From Eamonn.”

  “Have I?” Michael’s voice sounded amused, and Isabel slewed around on her dressing table chair. “I wonder what he wants.”

  “Michael! Eamonn doesn’t always have errands for you to do.”

  “That’s true enough, but my suspicions are aroused.”

  He began to undress, and she turned her back on him.

  “The letter’s on your dresser,” she said, hoping to distract him long enough so that she could slip from the room.

  “I see it is, but I’ll shower first.”

  Isabel knew that he was delaying just to irritate her. She heard him rummage in his drawers for clean clothes, then rattle the wardrobe as he got his dressing gown. He’d be starkers, she knew, if she glanced around. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. Then she caught a glimpse of his long wiry horseman’s body in the mirror of her table as he passed. She closed her eyes. Why couldn’t he undress in the decent privacy of the bathroom, as she’d asked him often enough?

  “I shan’t be long,” Michael Carradyne said as he always did, and left the room.

  Isabel got to her feet, rigid with frustration. Why must the man be so obstinate? It just wasn’t proper. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She was married to the man and had always had to cope with his ways and whims, no matter how distasteful they were to her. She could not understand how someone from a presumably good background could, in private, be so disgusting.

  “All men are,” her mother had told the distressed new bride. “It’s their nature.”

  “But he’s a Carradyne,” the naive Isabel had replied.

  “He’s a man,” her mother had said scathingly as if that explained all. “Endure it, my dear, as we all must for the children we bear as our sacred Catholic duty.”

  Marriage, and its intimacies, had been a shocking revelation to the gently reared, convent-trained Isabel Marshall. She had been brought up by the placid nuns to believe good of all, except, of course, the Brits. Her family had been well-to-do merchants in Dublin, with a comfortable large house in Mount Merrion, and she had been educated to go as wife, mother, and chatelaine to a similar establishment.

  Thus primed for her life’s work, it had seemed only right that she marry someone exactly like the young and handsome Michael Carradyne. Isabel had been unable to believe her good fortune—all her friends had been green with jealousy—when Michael had proposed. He was everything that could please a young girl: the second son of a fine old County Wicklow family. They were Anglo-Irish, not Republicans, but they were Catholic. Michael was tall, just over six feet, with curly black hair and eyes of a brilliant blue. He was a graduate of University College Dublin, had been a member of the Irish Equestrian Team, and his family’s horses consistently won at the Royal Dublin Horse Show. Everyone encouraged her and applauded the match. Caught up by the universal approval, Isabel had been delighted. Until her wedding night. Even now, she took an alternate route to bypass St. Stephen’s Green rather than go near the Shelbourne Hotel.

  Nine times she had become pregnant, and she had raised six children, taking what consolation she could from her sacred Catholic duty. In her last pregnancy, something had gone seriously wrong, and she had had to have a hysterectomy. During the convalescence from that drastic operation, Isabel had been given a prescription for tranquilizers, and the capsules had made all the difference. Even when the man insisted on his conjugal rights—though he knew perfectly well the Church forbade that if it was only for pleasure, not procreation—the tranquilizers helped her endure him. Why did men have all the rights, she wondered, and women none?

  Isabel was startled to hear the door opening to readmit her husband. He was even now pulling loose the cord securing his robe. Compressing her lips into a thin, displeased line, she rose and left the room. She tried not to hear Michael’s laugh as she stalked down the stair
s.

  “Was the news from Jack good, Belle?” Eithne asked as Isabel entered the lounge. Eithne was, as usual, studying the classified section of the Irish Times.

  Startled, Isabel stared at her sister-in-law a moment until she remembered that Eithne had seen the post first.

  “And another thing, Eithne, I really do like to see the post as soon as it arrives.”

  “I am sorry about that, Belle,” she said, smiling apologetically. “But there was Michael insisting that they were perishing of the cold after standing in the sand menage—”

  “Eithne!” Isabel said severely.

  “Well, there was so much going on all at once that I just put the post down and . . . ” She gave a little penitent sigh and a fleeting smile. “Well, so how is Jack? He hasn’t had another attack of malaria, has he?” Eithne’s hand flew to her throat, her brown eyes anxious on Isabel’s face.

  “No, nothing physical is wrong,” Isabel said.

  “Oh, dear. Here, have a glass of sherry and tell me.”

  Isabel accepted the sherry and assumed her favorite chair by the fireplace, angled so the heat of the logs or coal would not scorch her stockinged legs. Isabel was of medium height, and her early convent training had left her with a very erect, almost military posture. Her fine, light brown hair was now mostly gray and no longer softened her fine-boned face. A weekly salon appointment kept it stylishly dressed, but Eithne thought she really ought to have it touched up, especially when so many people did these days.

  “Jack is extremely worried,” said Isabel. “He’s tried to get old Father Perez to admit that the mission is being used as a depot, but the man refuses to believe that his parishioners would jeopardize the infirmary and the school. And they change governments so quickly down there! Jack’s afraid that things will be very different in the next coup. Why couldn’t he have been satisfied to do God’s work right here in Ireland instead of thousands of miles away from me?”

  “I know, Belle, I know. It’s all so worrying.”

  “I said three rosaries for his safety.”

  “Of course you did. And what did Eamonn have to say?”

  “I don’t know. Michael will tell us in his own good time.”

  Just then their preprandial quiet was disrupted by the sound of a car charging up the drive.

  “Eithne, when is Owen going to fix that exhaust? You know what Michael said about the dangers of petrol fumes in cold weather. It’s too bad of Owen!”

  Eithne sighed dramatically. “I told him, Isabel, that he had to get that done immediately. But he will listen to nothing his old mother says.”

  Isabel gave her sister-in-law a trenchant stare. At forty-two Eithne could scarcely be termed “old” even by the disrespectful young.

  Eithne Gavaghan Carradyne, married at seventeen to Michael’s younger brother and widowed by the war three years later, was almost the antithesis of her sister-in-law. She was a neatly made, well-rounded, feminine woman, an inch shorter than Isabel, with brown hair that she discreetly colored with an equally discreet reddish tinge. She was devoted to the Carradyne family for their acceptance of a young, frightened bride from County Longford and eternally grateful to them for giving her widowed self and two small boys the shelter of Cornanagh’s charming mews house.

  Eithne had had opportunities to remarry. Certainly Tyler Carradyne had presented one eligible young man after another. Isabel, however, had turned deaf ears to the pleas of both husband and father-in-law that she urge Eithne to accept one of her suitors. She would not be a party to forcing Eithne to marital degradation.

  And Eithne was a useful sort, quite willing to help with the children when they were young. She had been indispensable during their father-in-law’s last illness, nursing him tenderly and with great compassion, for Isabel had found the man more impossible than ever, trying to dominate his house, business, and family from his bed. Eithne was not, however, as firm with her two sons as she should have been. Fortunately for them, their grandfather, and more lately Michael, had supplied the necessary masculine discipline. Only Owen now lived at home.

  The door into the lounge rattled and burst inward as Philip, Isabel’s favorite of her own children, was pushed into the room by his cousin. Both were laughing in that maddening fashion of men after an off-color joke. They had the grace to moderate their mirth, and each gave his mother a dutiful peck on the cheek.

  “Owen, you are to fix the exhaust on that motor this week!”

  “I’d’ve had it done today, Auntie Isabel, but the part hasn’t come in.”

  “It’s been more than two weeks since your uncle asked you to have that fixed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Owen smiled placatingly at his aunt.

  “Perisher of a day, wasn’t it?” Philip said to the room at large as he made for the drinks tray. “Owen?” He lifted the Paddy’s meaningfully, his very regular eyebrows raised above his still laughing blue eyes.

  Isabel suppressed a surge of pride in this graceful and courteous son who was such a contrast to Owen’s brash, almost insolent manner. Philip had never caused her a moment’s worry, not from the day he was born. Once again, she pondered the advisability of sending him to Michael’s brother, Patrick, who was doing so well in the advertising business in the States. She was certain that Philip would do very well there, even if Michael insisted that the murky depths of that particular American business were not a suitable environment for an unsophisticated Irish lad.

  “Patrick’s done so well,” she had argued with Michael.

  Michael had eyed her, one of his brows climbing just as Philip’s now did, and snorted derisively. “Patrick has a truly devious Irish soul and a suspicious nature. I’d never buy a horse from him.”

  “He’s not selling horses in America.”

  “Isn’t he? Horses of a different color and form. I always wondered about Mother and that tinker friend of hers!”

  Isabel had been so outraged by Michael’s naughtiness, even though she knew it for a deliberate diversion, that she had dropped the subject.

  Philip, however, did know horses. She was positive that that was why Michael would not stir himself to better Philip’s employment. Philip had been showing Cornanagh horses since he was sixteen. And recently, since the war wound in Michael’s thigh had begun to plague him, he had yielded the show jump riding to Owen and Philip—until Owen had lamed a horse two years ago for reasons that had put him in Coventry and not even Catriona had spoken to him for weeks.

  The worry about Philip was wearing on Isabel’s nerves, even with the help of her capsules, and although she couldn’t think what else Philip was fitted to do, anything would be an improvement over selling cars. Now, as she sipped her evening sherry, regarding her favorite son with detachment, the thought occurred to her that possibly Eamonn’s letter had to do with Philip. Michael could have acquiesced to her constant requests to inquire about openings with his brothers. Yes, that was what the letter would be about, Isabel thought, and began to relax and enjoy her aperitif.

  Michael came in and acknowledged everyone’s greetings. He gestured for Isabel to keep her seat as she began to rise to pour his Scotch. He was wearing his blazer, which meant that he’d be out for the evening. She could almost bless that horse board thing of his that kept him so busy. She and Eithne could watch their choice of programs on the telly instead of having to endure more football or rugby. Not that there was that much on tonight. Just then the double doors leading to the dining room slowly opened, and Catriona, leaning on the knob, swung in.

  “Bridie says dinner’s ready. It’s shepherd’s pie with a gorgeous pud.”

  “There’s no need to recite the menu when you announce dinner, Catriona,” Isabel reminded her, sipping the last of her sherry before rising to lead the way into the dining room with Eithne. She winced as Catriona banged against her chair, knocking it into the table.

  “Do watch where you put your feet, child. I don’t know what the nuns are teaching these days. Doesn’t anyone care a
bout deportment anymore? Why, we had to—”

  “We know, Mother,” Philip said, interrupting the well-known story with a charming grin as he held out her chair for her. Then, pretending that he was balancing a book on his head, he paraded in a rigid-backed strut to his own chair. Catriona watched him, muffling a giggle.

  Remembering that the letter might be about Philip, Isabel forbore to rebuke him. It would not do to prejudice Michael in any way right now. Isabel removed her napkin from its ring, her fingers sliding over the smooth jade. The ring had once held her mother-in-law’s linen, the jade was a gift from one of her peripatetic brothers. That generation’s priest, yet another Father John Carradyne, had been a missionary in China, a victim of the Boxer Rebellion. Isabel signed the cross in a quick gesture of memory for the man’s martyrdom.

  Then Bridie set the huge casserole in front of her, sniffing as she usually did when she served inferior dishes. Eithne bustled out to bring in the rest of the vegetables. Then Catriona had to be sent to fetch the butter, which she had forgotten to place on the table.

  Eithne took her seat now, and Isabel began to serve the pie. Michael carved the roasts, but Isabel always served the less important entrées. As she pierced the crust—and it was Bridie’s usual perfection—the steam rose, spreading its rich aroma.

  “Catriona, it is impolite to sniff in that fashion at the dinner table.”

  Catriona bent her head, her forehead almost touching the plate.

  “Well, it certainly does smell sniffing good, Mother,” Philip said with an exaggerated inhalation.

  “No one makes a shepherd’s pie as good as Bridie’s,” Eithne added, and filled the silence while dinner was being shared out with a list of inferior meals she had had to endure, featuring the same dish. Michael’s eyes became somewhat glazed as they often did when his sister-in-law bored him.

  “How is your brother?” Isabel inquired with studied indifference when Eithne paused in her dissertation to take a forkful.