The Silence in the Garden Page 9

  The nursery-schoolroom was to become her married bedroom. The butterflies had been swept up from the floor, the windows thrown open, the curtains taken down and washed. Her regiment of dolls remained because Finnamore had protested that it was a shame to see them go, but the table where she had once sat over her lessons, close to the fire, had been taken from the room. A bed had been set up between the fireplace and the windows; wardrobe, dressing-table, wash-stand and a chest of drawers had been carried in.

  Other rooms were being made ready for the guests who would stay at Carriglas for the wedding. It was ages since so many visitors’ rooms had been prepared. Once upon a time, before her own time, the Viceroy had spent ten days of August at Carriglas, a tradition that had passed from one Viceroy to the next. Less eminent visitors had stayed for months.

  No word had come from Hugh. She’d thought it might, a line or two of good wishes, some sort of sign. Might he be angry? she had wondered. ‘I don’t want to live without you, Villana’: she heard his voice, as girls heard the echo of their lovers’ voices in the novels she borrowed from the convent library. In the novels she loved it when whatever was wrong became right—when the amnesia of a soldier’s shell-shock lifted, when a tyrannical father relented, or a mother gave up her son to his bride with a contented heart. Happening as tenderly as any of that, Hugh might yet confess that his marriage to some girl in Essex was all made up; and looking into one another’s faces, they might say they had been fools. What on earth did it matter? they might say: why shouldn’t they snatch at happiness? She closed her eyes and saw him on the avenue with his leather suitcase, returning to Carriglas.

  Villana finished her cigarette before she continued her walk, steeply downhill to the pier, which the ferryboat had just reached. Having turned off its engines, the ferryman was sitting on a fish crate, smoking a cigarette himself.

  ‘I wanted to invite you,’ Villana said as she approached him, ‘to come up to the house on the twenty-sixth. You know what day that is?’

  ‘I do of course, miss. It’s good you’d invite an old fellow.’

  ‘We’re sorry the ferry is coming to an end.’

  ‘You’ll be better off with the bridge in the long way.’

  ‘We’re used to the ferry.’

  She walked along the shore and took the path by the old boathouse to the garden, where her grandmother was sitting in the shade of the strawberry trees, a white-brimmed hat protecting her further from the afternoon sun. Villana rid her shoes of the dust they had gathered by drawing them, first one and then the other, sideways over the grass. Then she kicked them off.

  ‘I told the ferryman to come up for a drink.’

  ‘That’s nice of you.’

  ‘It’s a natural thing to do.’

  Patty arrived with a tray and a tablecloth. The cloth was spread on the table that stood among the chairs, cups and saucers arranged. Before the maid went away Villana handed her the sea-pinks and asked her to put them in water.

  ‘I will surely, miss.’

  Another wedding present had arrived: a set of Waterford decanters. Villana described them to her grandmother and, listening to the description, Mrs Rolleston nodded several times. Villana mentioned the wedding luncheon.

  ‘Sea trout and turbot,’ she said. ‘Salads to go with them. Everything cold if we’re to be outside.’

  Again her grandmother nodded.

  ‘And ham, I suppose, better be ordered from Meath’s,’ Villana stipulated. ‘Not everyone cares for fish.’

  ‘You’ll have music, of course?’

  ‘Music?’

  ‘There was always music after a wedding at Carriglas. The band playing in the alcove on the stairs. Dancing all over the place.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that would be possible. To start with, we couldn’t afford a band.’

  The old woman did not acknowledge that. She sipped her tea. Then she said:

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t go on with this foolishness.’ i’ve chosen this foolishness. I’ve actually made a choice.’

  Villana picked up her book, from where she’d left it on the grass before going for her walk. ‘But, my dear girl, we can all do perfectly well without happiness,’ a line of dialogue maintained. Some wise old gentleman was speaking, a traveller who had climbed the mountains of four continents and seen nature in the raw. ‘The other side of the coin, my dear, is that no one can do without love. It is the greatest of all deprivations not to know love in some wise, either to give or to receive. It hardly matters which.’

  She nodded over the words, agreeing with the sentiment. But what the novel didn’t say was that love left an emptiness behind that was as cold as frozen snow. The lonely cigarette in the middle of the night, the pages of another story turned, the balm of Traynor’s picture house, the dream of Hugh returning to Carriglas: none of them lasted long. Only love itself, offered from whatever source, could warm, just a little, those fathomless depths: Hugh, too, knew that.

  ‘I’ll be all right, you know,’ she said, as gently as she could.

  But Mrs Rolleston seemed not to hear.

  Finnamore, while tea was taken at Carriglas, held up his arms to facilitate the tailor who fitted him with his wedding suit. It seemed proper that new clothes should have been cut and made for him, even though he possessed other clothes that might have done. Villana had agreed.

  ‘I have a bad debt, Mr Balt,’ the tailor said from among the pins that lined his mouth. ‘I was going to ask you to write a letter. If you would, sir.’

  ‘Indeed I will. You mustn’t put up with that.’

  The tailor nodded, marking the dark cloth with his chalk. He revealed more about the nature of the debt while Finnamore courteously listened, as he always did when a misdemeanour was outlined.

  ‘Goff,’ the tailor said, naming his debtor as a member of the landowning class. ‘Sir Cedric Goff owes me for four suits of plus-fours.’

  ‘I will write Sir Cedric Goff a letter. Most certainly.’

  He inclined his head as he spoke. He was pleased that this identity had been established. There were a limited number of people in the neighbourhood who would have their clothes specially made, just as there were a limited number of people who would make use of a solicitor’s services, though more of course would come to Harbinson and Balt than would approach a tailor. On first hearing about the debtor, he had pondered over whom it might be; it interested him that it was Sir Cedric Goff. The initial letter would of necessity require to be delicately couched, since no doubt Sir Cedric would be present on the twenty-sixth. Eugene Prille might be given the task—in two or three lines simply to draw attention to what could be termed an oversight. When the twenty-sixth was safely past, a sterner note might be struck.

  ‘Some constraint, is there?’ the tailor enquired, buttoning the waistcoat.

  Finnamore reassured him. He stood while adjustments were marked on the sleeves of the jacket, his thoughts no longer involved with Sir Cedric Goff but with four fields to which the Rollestons, beyond all possible doubt, had clear title. During all the years of his investigation he had sought a starting point, many times believing he had found it only later to become doubtful. But when recently he had suggested to the family that papers of seizure be issued he had not done so lightly. As he saw it, the Rolleston claim was indisputable; but receiving little encouragement from either his fiancée or her brothers, he had gone over the ground again, testing it for possible loopholes, probing what might be areas of weakness. He had discovered nothing to upset his sanguine view, but even so he had requested Eugene Prille to examine the ground independently. A starting point must by its very nature be indisputable; it was useless otherwise. From it, precedent would be established, and further precedent spawned.

  The four fields in question were now in the hands of a woman who was only distantly connected with the family which, three generations ago, the Rollestons had excused the payment of rent. Though it was not an issue—and in Finnamore’s opinion it would be unwise to s
uggest it ever might be—the woman in question came of fishing stock and could call on no inherited farming expertise. Deterioration of the land had set in over the years and was now continuing at a swifter pace than hitherto, the ill-drained acres separated from the Carriglas estate only by a tangle of brambles, to which the Rollestons had title also.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Balt.’ The tailor rose from a stooping position, having satisfied himself that the trouser turn-ups rested correctly on Finnamore’s black shoes. ‘Thank you for your patience, sir.’

  Finnamore smiled an acknowledgement, his lips drawn back in bony contentment. He saw in his mind’s eye the four fields joined again to the fields that had for so many centuries been their companions, a way made through the brambles, and precedent begetting precedent. He saw himself walking with his wife through gardens in which there were gardeners again, by ripening corn and healthy meadows. The prospect displeased in no particular; only the outrage of the bridge’s dedication cast a shadow. He had made representations to the authorities in the sternest language at his command. Although there was no legal issue to argue, he had succinctly exposed the error of the decision that had been taken, making his case on grounds of simple humanity. The man was the family’s last enemy, he had written in a letter that in the end covered two sheets of Harbinson and Balt writing-paper. Any day now there should be a reply.

  Carriglas, August 10th, 1931. This afternoon I carried the can of tea to the field where Lionel and Haverty were clearing stubble. It is the first time since my return that I have done so, the task usually being Patty’s, but Patty is inclined to dawdle. I went the back way, by the little copse and the hillfields, and saw the two men in the distance long before I was near enough to be noticed. I can neither describe nor properly indicate the happiness I experienced in the warm sunshine, spreading out when I arrived a tea-cloth in which I’d wrapped two slices of sponge cake. His hand brushed mine, I don’t know how it was, some accidental thing, ‘Oh, sorry,’ he at once apologised, relegating to clumsiness on his part this precious moment.

  Yet afterwards, as I walked back to the house, I felt touched, not by contentment but by misfortune, drawn into a mood of hopelessness that often seems to pervade the very landscape of Carriglas now. I understand nothing of it.

  That same evening John James walked up and down under the monkey puzzle, smoking. He liked to do that in summer when it was fine, as his father had. Taking his ease in the garden after dinner, his father used to call it.

  His leg ached because he was upset. ‘Look on the wash-stand, pet,’ she’d said, and when he’d done so he saw that she’d actually written out a cheque. She required no interest on the money, she had assured him, raising herself on an elbow and causing the bedclothes to fall back from the upper half of her body.

  His father would have laughed, even though he’d have been surprised. People said his father was the tallest man in Ireland and had the straightest back. His father often permitted a whimsical slant of amusement to soften his features; things did not upset him, but even so he could be firm. ‘Yes, I have to say surprised,’ he would have drily commented on the clandestine association.

  The feeling that his father was constantly watching was sometimes most upsetting. On his way to the boardinghouse he always hurried by the windows of the promenade in an effort to avoid the glances by the curious; he took exception to the haughty gaze of Finnamore Balt’s white cat, and was glad the animal was not to accompany the man to Carriglas. All the time, striding through the summer trippers, pushing open the door she left on the latch, he felt uneasy. It was he who’d suggested that the maid should not be there on Mondays; and the summer boarders were not permitted to hang about the house during the day. ‘My handsome boy,’ the woman always greeted him, no matter how they had parted the last time. And every time she did so he sensed his father’s amusement.

  On the lawn beneath the monkey puzzle he lit another cigarette and then continued his walk, back and forth. Somebody had spoken to Coyne about that French motorcar. Coyne wouldn’t have approached him if there hadn’t been a prompting. ‘I didn’t open my mouth to him, honey. Wouldn’t it have been your sister?’ But when he mentioned it at dinner Villana had appeared to be genuinely surprised. Certainly a motor-car would be necessary, his sister had agreed: her fiance’s old Ford would naturally come to Carriglas when they were married, but it was too small to accommodate the family, and besides it wasn’t fair that such use should be made of it. in that case we’ll have to sell a field,’ he’d countered, separating the flesh of a sole from its backbone. Lionel had shaken his head, but hadn’t said anything. A car wasn’t necessary since they had several perfectly good traps, and a governess-car and a dog-cart. Besides all that, there was no call whatsoever for outside interference in a family matter; and it was typical, of course, that she’d only see it from her own point of view, it’s only I’m worried you wouldn’t make your way across to me, pet. I’m worried for yourself, getting drenched in the rain.’ It was like walking into a spider’s parlour, he sometimes thought. A fly with a limp might feel the way he felt, enticed into her perfume. She smiled plumply in his imagination; the bedroom statues and pictures appeared. They were the one flesh, she’d said, urging the motor-car money on him.

  He sighed. The cheque had remained on the wash-stand; he’d even gone to the trouble of explaining to her that in any case a cheque was totally unacceptable because it would have to pass through the bank, her name and his on the same piece of paper. And how had she known the amount to make it out for if she hadn’t made enquiries of the garage man? Of course she’d spoken to him; ridiculous to say it was Villana, ridiculous to say she’d sell the boarding-house tomorrow so as to be with him. She’d said that this afternoon. ‘Oh my lovely soldier!’ she’d said, her lips caressing his ear. She’d said something else, which he couldn’t hear properly. More blandishments had followed, and then he thought she was suggesting she should become the cook at Carriglas before it dawned on him that she was again proposing to come to Carriglas as his wife. ‘Mixed marriages are acceptable on my side,’ she’d said, and unable to help himself he replied that it would be as suitable for him to marry one of the maids.

  On the other lawn, across the gravel sweep, Villana picked up her brown-papered novel from the table beneath the strawberry trees. He watched her moving towards him and when she was close enough he offered her a cigarette, knowing she would not take one since she only smoked Craven A because of their cork tips. She walked beside him, among rosebushes that scented the evening air. Lionel would have to spare Haverty to tidy up the garden, she said. She did what she could and Sarah did what she could, but the garden could not be like this on the twenty-sixth.

  ‘It’s difficult with my leg,’ he hastily interposed, i’d help if I could.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ i know you didn’t.’

  There was a silence, it’s a burden,’ his father had warned him once in Davison’s Hotel. ‘Any old place is a burden.’ Finnamore Balt had a peculiar idea that various smallholdings should be obliged to yield their long-forgotten rents, that land should be repossessed. Finnamore Balt was keen to engage in litigation, even the litigation of eviction, offering his legal services free of charge. But that was something Lionel had shaken his head over also, and of course he was quite right: all it would mean was that the family would drown in a morass of quibbles and acrimony, every last ha’penny sucked out of what residue there was.

  ‘Are you surprised that I am marrying?’

  ‘Well yes, I have to say I am.’

  He looked away, across the garden, feeling awkward. It was difficult to know what to say. It was difficult to voice any comment whatsoever, since the whole thing was an absurdity and since he had so much on his mind anyway. He wished he could tell her about his visits to the boardinghouse, and how he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he was being watched from beyond the grave. For a moment he considered telling her about the carpentry instructor’s unprovoked attack
on Asquith-Jones because he thought it might amuse her, but in the end he desisted. He heard her say there would be no children, but he didn’t want to think about that and didn’t listen to her voice when it continued. He would not return to the Rose of Tralee boarding-house, he resolved. As long as he lived he would never again find himself staring up at the bunches of lilies on the wallpaper.

  5. Mr Coyne Changes His Mind

  Tom’s mother told him he had grandparents. There would be grandparents on his father’s side, in Dublin somewhere: she had never known them, they had never been in touch with her. He had other grandparents, her own mother and father, living nine miles inland beyond the town. ‘Your grandmother wants me to take you over one day.’

  ‘Is my grandmother nice?’

  ‘She is, Tom.’

  ‘Is she like Mrs Rolleston at all?’

  ‘She’s half the age of Mrs Rolleston. Will we go over and see her?’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it so.’

  When there were holidays from the convent Tom’s daytime world was the yard and the outhouses at Carriglas, and the sculleries, where he sometimes helped Patty to clean vegetables, and the fields, where sometimes he assisted Haverty. He roamed the island on his own, clambering down the cliffs to the rocks and the shrimp pools. He looked to see that the rosary crucifixes and the coins the women left at the holy well, on a ledge above the saint’s pillow, remained undisturbed. He rarely climbed up to the standing stones.

  ‘Mrs Rolleston wants you upstairs, Tom,’ Patty said, coming to find him in the yard on the morning of the day he and his mother were to meet his grandmother. Overhearing Patty’s delivery of the summons, his mother said that Mrs Rolleston would have a message for him to do.’If that’s the way of it wait over there for me, Tom. Wait down on the quays till you’ll see me coming.’ Mrs Rolleston would give him twopence for himself, as she always did, and a penny for the ferry. He should spend the twopence on broken biscuits in Meath’s, his mother said, and eat them while he was waiting.