The Big Wind

by Beatrice Coogan

  She seated herself at the dressing-table; her back to him, her face staring whitely from the mirror. Rows of tall candles blazing in mirrored duplicate gave him the impression of an altar ablaze with votive candles. The realisation had a significance unassociated with the time when he used to be in and out of her room every day; to make sure that Mickey-the-turf had replenished the turf holder; to carry in her hip bath and place it just not too near the blazing sods; when he would light her to her room up winding stairs past eerie nooks and crannies. He looked at the sumptuous bed and recalled the time when she had measles and he used to read to her; one hand holding the book the other reaching out to jerk back the red woollen cap that clustered the red hair over the red-patched face. All that lurid red; the coverlet, the curtains, the red bedjacket, essential colour treatment for measles. This mother-of-pearl bed would have disturbed the treatment. It was—disturbing. He took his eyes from its slender columns embowered in silken drapes and looked back at the face that stared so strangely at him from the mirror.

  ‘Listen, Young Thomas—Thomas. No,’ she cried out, ‘I mean Young Thomas.’ She rose and came back to him. ‘Because you are young. You will always be “Young Thomas” to me. Always.’

  She had changed. This was not the Sterrin whom he had known. That Sterrin might blaze with sudden temper but she was never distrait. Even after her father’s murder she had conserved her strength to support her mother. ‘Sterrin,’ he said quietly, ‘what is amiss? There is a dread on you.’

  Before she could reply there was a tap at the door and Hannah entered. ‘Miss Sterrin,’ she gasped, ‘what are you thinking of? A gentleman blaguardin’ in your bedroom!’

  ‘Hannah, you humbug,’ cried a voice that made her jump out of her standing. ‘Don’t pretend to be shocked. This is not the first time that you have seen me in Miss Sterrin’s bedroom.’

  ‘Glory be to the Hand of God!’ she gasped. ‘Young Thomas! Didn’t I think that you were a gentleman.’

  ‘What a terrible mistake! Why, Hannah, you used to say that you’d know a gentleman if you only saw him walking upside down on the ceiling like a fly.’

  ‘An’ I’m looking at one now, Young Thomas, asthore; the finest that ever I laid eyes on, barrin’ Sir Roderick’s own self. Mrs. Stacey will be out of her mind with joy and Big John and indeed Mr. Hegarty, too. He often says that you were his right hand.’

  ‘I’m afraid that you will have to carry them the full of my heart of love and the gifts that I have brought for all of you. I had hoped to risk a flying visit to Kilsheelin tonight. We go to London tomorrow but now that I’ve discovered Miss Sterrin to be here I shall not risk—’

  ‘But didn’t you know she’d be here. Isn’t that why we’re all here? Sure...’

  ‘That’s all right, Hannah,’ Sterrin interrupted her. ‘I shall be down in a moment. And mind, don’t breathe a word.’ Hannah paused at the doorway; uneasy.

  ‘I don’t like it, Miss Sterrin. It’s neither wrong nor right and his Honour Sir Jocelyn is asking for you.’ Sterrin waved her out impatiently but still the maid hesitated. ‘I’m in dread, Miss Sterrin. It’s contrary but—’ she turned to Thomas. ‘You are the full of my eyes. I can’t take them off you. Would anyone believe that you ever drew a rusty knife down the centre of a raw potato?’

  He opened the door and manoeuvred her through. ‘No, Hannah. No one would ever believe such a calumny. My knives were never rusty.’

  A man’s voice sounded and Sterrin rushed to close the door. ‘He’ll hear you,’ she whispered.

  The laughter went from his face. With his hand still gripping the door knob he said, ‘Sterrin, who has put this fear on you? Is it the man whom your mother is going to marry?’

  Her eyes were blue-black in the tense white of her face. ‘Mamma!’ She gave a little laugh that had nothing to do with joy. ‘Where have you been, Young Thomas? You cannot have been anywhere in the three kingdoms or you would know the name of the future Lady Devine.’

  It was his turn to go white. She noticed the way his knuckles strained white, too, from his grip of the door knob. A black line of words crawled through his brain. Words like purblind and love-blind and presumptuous fool. But the great actor had no tricks to get his lines across the silence of this unset stage.

  ‘I thought you knew.’ So it had been an omen, he was thinking. That mayfly on its wedding flight! ‘Do you hear me?’ she repeated. ‘I thought you knew.’ Her voice reached him at last like the prompter’s insistent cue penetrating the silence of forgotten lines.

  ‘And thinking I knew,’ he said quietly, ‘you let me inhale the bouquet.’

  ‘What bouquet?’ She said it lifelessly because she knew he was reproaching her in some of his bookish metaphors.

  ‘Sterrin,’ he said softly, ‘do you remember the Christmas before the famine? Hounds met at Kilsheelin next day and the Wren Boys danced in the hall—oh yes, by the way. John Holohan who danced the “double” with that long-haired girl, Molly Heffernan, is on the way to becoming another Croesus. Sir Roderick,’ he continued, ‘had ordered Hegarty to decant some rare wine for Sir Jocelyn Devine. He was such a connoisseur! Hegarty gave me a lambastin’ afterwards because, when I filled the decanter, I paused for a split second to inhale—to sniff, I should say, I hadn’t learnt to “inhale” in those days. Then Sir Jocelyn raised the glass to his lips and savoured it, sip by sip, with slow delight...’

  ‘How dare you!’ She had caught his meaning. ‘You—you have no right to speak like that to me!’

  The white horror on her face recalled him from his reverie. ‘No, Achushla, I have no right to speak to you at all.’ He twisted the knob and held the door ready. ‘But you cannot withdraw from me the breath of fragrance that escaped on its way to the connoisseur. Goodbye, Sterrin.’

  Suddenly she was the cool, still girl he remembered. She placed the tip of one white-clad finger on the door and its opening ceased. ‘I am sorry to spoil your exit; it deserves applause. You have learned to speak drama magnificently, but this is not a play; it is life; not just mine or Mamma’s or Dominic’s. It concerns the lives of people like Hegarty, whose grandfather gave his life to save Kilsheelin from confiscation; people like Big John and Mrs. Stacey, born in Kilsheelin like their parents before them; and Mike O’Driscoll, whose grandfather was flogged to death in the old deer park because he was gamekeeper to a papist when papists were not allowed to have gamekeepers. It concerns the possible eviction of tenants who have occupied our land since—almost since the first Prince of the O’Carrolls lived at Kilsheelin.’

  The celebrated actor stood chastened while the descendant of the first Prince of the O’Carrolls rebuked her knife boy; a true princess of her line carrying the burdens of her heritage on the silver and turquoise slopes of her shoulders. Such young shoulders!

  ‘Too young!’ It broke from him involuntarily and she misunderstood. Minute by minute she was loving him more, understanding more what had been the meaning of the things he had said when he bade her goodbye over five years ago, and with every minute she was resenting more and more the anguish she had endured on him and the long silence that he had allowed her to suffer. What did he expect to find when he condescended to swoop back in all his glory? A rustic belle wearing the willow for him?

  ‘Too young for what? For whom? Even those who stay at home grow in some direction. They grow old; they even grow rusty...’ His smile angered her while it twisted her heart with its warm sweetness. He was thinking that the qualities that were the antithesis of rust and age, the qualities of youth and brightness stood out from her like another dimension in a full-length aureole.

  ‘I must go down,’ she announced in dismissal. ‘There is no more time for explanations or reproach.’

  He made no move to open the door for her. There was too much to be said. But it opened and Sir Jocelyn Devine said, ‘I’m afraid, my dear, we must find time for both, since I find that you are far from reproach.’

  Sterrin reflected that she seeme
d to be observing Young Thomas’s knuckles all night. They were shining again through the skin. This time they were clenched. He stepped up to Sir Jocelyn.

  ‘That is an unutterable thing to say to Miss O’Carroll.’

  In the turn of Sir Jocelyn’s head there was the reptilian savagery of the cobra about to strike. ‘I found her,’ he replied and his lips scarcely moved, ‘in unutterable circumstances and—unutterable company.’ Young Thomas almost recoiled from the impact of his contempt. ‘I engaged you,’ he continued, ‘for the entertainment of my betrothed wife.’ His eyes moved down the room in the direction of the bed. ‘I did not expect you to carry your entertaining powers this far.’

  Young Thomas felt that for the rest of his life the scaly lustre of mother-of-pearl would always suggest Sir Jocelyn’s eyes as they glinted towards the bed. ‘Sir,’ he said quietly, ‘your knowledge of your betrothed wife and your great knowledge of life should reassure you that the circumstances look too black to be real.’

  Sir Jocelyn turned from him to Sterrin and said icily, ‘How does this man come to be in your bedroom?’

  ‘It would be difficult for me to give an explanation of all the times he has been in my bedroom.’

  It was the first time in decades that the baronet’s Court-of-Saint James manner boggled.

  ‘He was in my room,’ continued Sterrin, ‘the morning I was born.’ And just as she had once said it when she rose to explain to her father why she had purloined his rarest lilies for the grave of Young Thomas’s godchild she said, ‘He is of our household.’

  ‘Indeed!’ He looked curiously at Young Thomas. ‘And what position, pray did this—this person hold in your household?’

  Blue flames shot from the diamonds in her hair as her head went up to answer. ‘A position of esteem.’

  Sir Jocelyn’s lips curled. ‘Obviously, I do not allow laxities amongst my servants. Whelps sometimes get swollen from the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters.’ His contemptuous look measured Thomas from head to foot. ‘Some of them are not even content with crumbs, they sniff their master’s wine and become intoxicated.’

  ‘Intoxicated, sir!’ cried Thomas. ‘If the wine comes from the...’ he looked significantly round the magnificent room, ‘the vault of a collector, a whelp might even become exalted.’

  Sir Jocelyn threw wide the door. ‘Leave this room,’ he ordered, but it was Sterrin who stepped across the threshold. With the two gentlemen, one on either side of her in the corridor she made an agreeable spectacle for the two pretty little ladies who rushed after them with a whirring of silk.

  ‘Oh, Sterrin,’ they gushed, ‘we’ve been looking out for you. We hoped...’ they looked coyly at Thomas, ‘that you would ask Mr. Young to write a verse in our Confession Books.’ Each held a white velvet-bound and gold-clasped book that contained the confessions to the favourite book, flower, colour and poem of their friends and their beaux.

  Sir Jocelyn stripped a smile. ‘We must not detain Mr. Young. He is leaving at once.’ They were all consternation, but Thomas was already scribbling, and over his shoulder Fiona Delaney was rapturously reading aloud, ‘Can plumes compare thy dark brown hair? Can silks thy neck of snow?’

  Her pretty companion presented an open page framed in painted forget-me-nots. Hannah tiptoed fearfully past and Sterrin, on an impulse, turned and called to her. ‘Hannah, fetch me my Confession Book.’ The maid paused to argue with her mistress that they did not possess such a thing and Sterrin said impatiently, ‘The green book in the escritoire.’

  The look that passed between them as she handed Young Thomas the green diary he had given her for her fourteenth birthday sent the blood pounding in Sir Jocelyn’s temples.

  ‘Sterrin,’ he said sharply, ‘there is no need to delay Mr. Young further.’ He would have bartered his wealth that moment to crane like the two young ladies to glimpse what was being written in the little green book. But it was held too adroitly and in a flash it was returned to its owner. She glanced imperturbably at the lines before she dropped the little diary in her gold reticule.

  As she moved down the stairs on the arm of her betrothed, the guests gazed upwards in admiration. They could not guess that her heart was repeating the lines that a trembling hand had scarce made legible, lines written by Thomas Davis of his unsanctioned love.

  We told each other to forget.

  As if we thought we should,

  ’Twas said we might not wed, and yet

  We kissed as if we could.

  She danced to its measure no matter the tune. Its message called her mood from joy to sorrow; from exaltation to despair. Sir Jocelyn, leading his fiancée out for the Quadrille, stood transfixed as his actor-guest made an entrance that suggested a fanfare. As Thomas hastened to where his host and Sterrin stood at the top of the line, the pattern of the dance broke up and the dancers gathered round him; the gentlemen clapping, the ladies all dither and delight.

  ‘I crave your pardon, Sir Jocelyn, and yours, Miss O’Carroll, to have been so unpunctual, but I have been detained by the most unforeseen circumstances.’

  A lady pushed forward. ‘But this is a wonderful surprise,’ she gushed. ‘We had heard that we were not to have the pleasure.’ Thomas bowed gravely.

  ‘I assured Sir Jocelyn on my arrival, when he so kindly invited me, that I would be here. Our stay, alas, is all too short and time is precious.’ He turned to Sterrin. ‘Miss O’Carroll,’ he said with a low bow, ‘am I too late? Is your programme written out?’

  She glanced at her programme. ‘The next is a Lancers. It has not been donated.’

  ‘Alas, Miss O’Carroll, I dare not presume to conduct you through the Lancers. I am not competent. The waltz is my only accomplishment.’ Under his breath he murmured, ‘It is more sociable.’

  When he came to claim his waltz, Sir Jocelyn’s face was livid. ‘You are treading on dangerous ground, sir,’ he gritted.

  ‘So I have been warned, Sir Jocelyn, but don’t worry. My feet are shod and I shall try to steer my partner past the gridirons.’

  A footman passed with a laden tray. ‘Are you all right, your Honour’s Sir Jocelyn?’ he asked timidly.

  His employer removed his hand from his eyes as the queer sensation cleared. ‘Not that!’ He waved away the proffered champagne. ‘Get me brandy!’

  Eyes were drawn and space unwittingly yielded to the superb couple as they glided down the long ballroom. Dowagers and debutantes watched with the same sub-ache and wondered what he was murmuring down into that upturned face. ‘Try not to kick my shins,’ he was saying.

  And she was murmuring back, ‘Those who have had the honour of waltzing with me could vouch that I waltz like a dream.’

  He whirled her round a marble pillar. ‘And one who had danced the Double Jig with you can vouch here and now that you kick like a mule. Have you read your diary?’

  ‘Yes,’ it was only a whisper and he stooped so low to catch it that his lips were caressed by her breath. He danced her back to the centre and up towards the watching eyes of her betrothed, then in and out of the garlanded pillars and banks of flowers and avenue of potted palms, and in a flowered alcove he breathed: ‘Sterrin, beloved, you must not marry that gold and marble-inlaid mummy.’

  There was impatience in her sigh. ‘Young Thomas, such talk does not help. Neither does it help to bait him.’

  ‘Bait! The child-baiting tradition of this house dies hard.’ His hand caressed the rounded chin. ‘A child still dances to the macabre chimes of its gold.’

  She drew back her face. ‘What’s the use of this. Young Thomas! He has not abducted me. He is a very great gentleman and the highest honour a man can give a woman is his name.’

  As though he had received a bullet, the arm that still encircled her for the waltz dropped to his side and his face was wounded white and his strangled words were the gasp of pain when he said, ‘And mine is but a nickname!’

  Her arms were around him and her cheek pressed his and her voice c
hoked with tears as she murmured, ‘Young Thomas, mo bheale asthore, would you think that I’d own such a thought!’ The blood-giving phrase warmed his cheek against hers. Mo bheale asthore, my life’s love. They drew back at the sound from another alcove. It was only a pair of lovers absorbed in the glamour of their own unhappiness. A very young officer of the Blues was urging his plea with a little maiden in gauzy white who sighed when she murmured, ‘Papa would shoot you if you caused another elopement in the family.’ She was Winifred Murray, the girl who had supported Sterrin on the convent wall while Sterrin watched out for Thomas.

  As the two pairs of clandestine lovers looked at one another from their separate bowers, the young officer’s mooning look gave way to an officer-and-gentleman frown. He released his arm from its protection duty about the tiny waist and dropped his hand challenglingly on his sword hilt. The play-actor was being let see that he was outraging the hospitality—and the honour—of his host.

  Thomas stepped towards their bower. ‘Sir, your sword arm wrongs Miss O’Carroll. ’Twas better employed before. After all, people who plot elopements cannot even throw pebbles.’ The officer went scarlet and Winifred gasped audibly. ‘Miss O’Carroll and I are old acquaintances. I have come direct from America. It was a most unexpected pleasure to meet here after years.’ Sterrin tapped his arm; the music had stopped. Thomas adopted a persuasive smile, ‘Look, sir, and you, madam,’ he bowed to Winifred, ‘could I beg that we exchange partners for a further dance and return here. I should like to speak to Miss O’Carroll again before I leave.’

  Sterrin consulted her programme. ‘I can give you the next one, Lieutenant O’Hara. It is a schottische. Is yours free, Winifred?’ Winifred offered up her programme like an immolation. Sterrin was up to something; just like at the convent, but Winifred felt that she herself would risk her father’s shotgun if Mr. Thomas Young suggested elopement. Sir Jocelyn Devine appeared around the pillar looking ominous but his fiancée was on the arm of Lieutenant Joachim O’Hara and the play-actor was signing up Miss Winifred Murray’s schottische.