An Embarrassment of Riches (2 page)

Kieron called Mr Fitzgerald's dog to heel, uncaring that at any moment he might be seen talking to an eight-year-old child. Maura's mother was his mother's second cousin and ever since Mr Fitzgerald had visited the hedge-school seven years ago, searching for a strong boy to help with menial tasks on the Clanmar Estate and singling him out from among the other boys as being the most likely, he had helped the Sullivans in any way that he could, purloining eggs and extra vegetables for them at every opportunity.

All such offerings were very gratefully received. Fifteen years ago Mary Sullivan had left Killaree with an uncle, travelling proudly to Dublin on the back of a horse-drawn cart. Within a year her parents were boasting that with the help of her English-speaking aunt she had secured a position for herself as a tweeny at Dublin Castle. The boast was not believed until five years later when Mary returned from Dublin to the hovels of Killaree in order to be with her dying mother. Within days, to the stunned amazement of Flynns, O'Flahertys and Murphys, Mary Sullivan was engaged at Ballacharmish as a downstairs maid.

Her days of glory did not last long. Within a few short months Lord Clanmar's son married. The rumour in the clachan was that the bride did not care to be waited on by a peasant, no matter how surprisingly accomplished, and shortly before Lord Clanmar left Ballacharmish for foreign parts, Mary was dismissed.

Her mother had died by then and once again she left for Dublin. This time, however, there was no employment for her at Dublin Castle. With her uncle and her English-speaking aunt also dead she had returned six months later to Killaree, destitute and hungry and sinfully pregnant, her previous airs of grandeur pathetically absent, her only means of support the patch of family land rented from Lord Clanmar.

Maura rested her elbows on her scraped knees and cupped her chin in her hands. She knew all about her mother having been a maid at Ballacharmish. To her, it seemed too incredible to be true. Kieron had told her that no-one from the cabins had ever been engaged before to work there, that the domestic staff were all engaged via a Dublin agency. But not her mother. Her mother had been different. She had been special.

Maura gazed down across the gorse-covered hillside to where Ballacharmish stood in its parkland, a white-walled, Queen Anne manor house, incongruously English and elegant against the wild savage backdrop of the mountains.

Ballacharmish. Even the word seemed magical. The dream of her life was one day to step beyond the great high walls that surrounded it and to walk up the long tradesmen's pathway to the rear of the house as her mother had done. To be able to peep into the kitchens and the pantries and perhaps even to see into the grand saloon where her mother had once waited on Lord Clanmar and his family.

She knew all about the splendours of the grand saloon for although her mother hated to talk of Ballacharmish, Kieron regaled her with story after story. At Christmas time the housekeeper had asked him to bring a fir tree into the house and to stand it in a decorated tub in the corner of the grand saloon in the German manner. He told her of how he had wrapped clean rags around his boots before stepping over the threshold and of how the grand saloon had a dove-grey carpet, soft and springy as a lamb's fleece and of how it covered nearly every inch of the floor. He told her also of the sofas and chairs covered in lemon silk, of the giant mirrors on the pale painted walls, of the massive chandeliers hanging from the moulded ceilings.

She sighed rapturously as she struggled to imagine such wonders. Kieron had mentioned that Lord Clanmar's granddaughter was seven years old and an orphan and that her name was Lady Isabel Dalziel. He had also told her of how Ballacharmish had been in an uproar, with furniture being brought out of store from the attics and extra rooms being made ready for the maid and nanny and governess that Lady Isabel would surely be bringing with her.

A small movement caught her eye. Far away to the right, on the dirt road leading from Killaree, a dark speck was heading towards Ballacharmish. Maura forgot about maids and nannies and governesses and leapt to her feet, shielding her eyes against the June sun. It had to be them. No other carriage would be moving at such a swift pace along the valley floor. The tradesmen's carts which came periodically out to Ballacharmish from Rathdrum only creaked along and Mr Fitzgerald never travelled any way other than on horseback.

For a while the carriage was lost to view by a curve of the hill and then it re-emerged and she could distinguish two seated figures, one much smaller than the other, both of them dressed sombrely in black.

As the carriage bowled along past the foot of the hill the smaller figure turned, looking upwards. Beneath a black beribboned bonnet Maura saw a pale triangular face and a gleam of corn-gold hair. Impulsively she began to wave. The carriage was heading towards the larchwoods and seconds before it was lost to view Maura saw the girl in the carriage raise her arm in response. Shock felled her to her knees. Lord Clanmar's granddaughter waving at
her
? Heaven and all the saints, what on earth had she done? Who could she possibly have been mistaken for?

Mesmerized she waited for the carriage to appear beyond the larchwoods and then she watched as it approached Ballacharmish, as the footmen jumped down, opening the giant wrought-iron gates, as it rolled through the undulating parkland and up the long, winding drive to the porticoed entrance.

She couldn't distinguish the dark-dressed figure waiting to greet Lord Clanmar and Lady Isabel as they stepped down from the carriage but assumed that it was Rendlesham, the Dublin-born butler. Kieron had told her of how Rendlesham had instructed all the household staff to line up in the marble-floored entrance hall at Lord Clanmar's approach in order that they could properly welcome him back to Ballacharmish.

‘And will you be there as well?' she had asked eagerly. ‘Will you be welcoming his lordship home to Ballacharmish?'

Kieron had chuckled and ruffled her matted tangle of curls with a strong, capable hand. ‘Away with you, Maura. A fine eejit I would look, standing alongside chamber-maids and ladies-maids. I shall welcome his lordship back to Ballacharmish in my own fashion and in my own good time.'

‘And so shall I,' Maura had said, determined not to be left out of such an exhilarating undertaking. ‘I shall be the very first person to see him when he returns!'

As the heavy oak door beneath the pillared portico closed behind the three minuscule figures she rose to her feet, well satisfied with herself. She
had
been the first to see Lord Clanmar and, in her own way, to welcome him back. More incredible still, her wave of welcome had not only been seen by his granddaughter, but had been reciprocated by her!

As she began to walk back down the hillside towards the larchwoods she began to giggle, anticipating Kieron's amused chuckles when she told him what had happened. She wondered whether to tell her mother as well and decided regretfully that it might be best not to. Although Kieron had once forced her mother into admitting that Lord Clanmar was the best landlord in County Wicklow and as such could be forgiven for also being English and Protestant, the occasion had been a rare one.

When she had been a small child Maura had not been able to understand her mother's unwillingness to talk of his lordship and of Ballacharmish. Lately, however, she had begun to sympathize with her silence, knowing that if she herself had worked at Ballacharmish and had been forced to leave because the new lady of the house did not consider her grand enough, then she would not want to talk of her former employer or of Ballacharmish either.

She stepped into the cool, dim greenness of the larchwoods. It had been Lady Dalziel who had taken objection to her mother's presence at Ballacharmish and had her dismissed. Lady Dalziel was dead now and Maura's most fervent hope was that her mother would now be reinstated. It was a hope so precious that she had not dared to put it into words, not even to Kieron.

A breeze was blowing from the direction of Killaree and carried on it were the odours of open drains and pig offal and manure. Maura wrinkled her nose in distaste. If her mother was reinstated at Ballacharmish then she, at least, would no longer have to live among the squalor of the cabins. She would live in with the other servants as she had done before. She would sleep in a proper bed, not on a mouse-ridden straw pallet, and she would have porridge and milk for breakfast and would eat with the other servants at a big deal table in the servants'dining-room.

A frown creased Maura's brow as she slid down a precipitously steep incline. The only flaw to the wonderful prospect of her mother once again being a maid at Ballacharmish was that she would not be allowed to live in with her mother, and her mother would most certainly never live in without her.

She pondered the problem, wondering how she could convince her mother that she was perfectly capable of living on her own. Perhaps if she confided in Kieron, Kieron would help to persuade her. Their patch of land was no problem. She knew all that there was to know about growing potatoes and oats and she already had sole responsibility for looking after their few hens and their aged she-goat. She was so deep in thought that she stubbed her toe on the root of a tree. She relieved her feelings by using a word she had heard Kieron use in similar circumstances and returned her attention to the problem in hand. What if Lord Clanmar asked his housekeeper to approach her mother about returning to Ballacharmish, and her mother refused, because of not wanting to leave her alone? The thought was so terrible that Maura stood stock-still, her throbbing, bloodied toe forgotten.

Down beyond the trees she could see the cabins and a couple of her neighbours working their walled potato patches. She would have to speak to her mother. She would have to tell her of the hope she was nursing and of how, more than anything else in the world, she wanted her to return to Ballacharmish.

With her decision made she immediately felt much better. She was by nature sunnily optimistic and she was suddenly quite sure that Lord Clanmar would ask his housekeeper to reinstate her mother as a downstairs maid, and that when she did so, her mother would accept. How could she not? How could anyone turn down the prospect of living at wonderful, magical, fairy-tale Ballacharmish?

‘… and so I thought I should have a word with you first, Ma, in case you thought I wouldn't be able to manage on my own,' she finished triumphantly an hour later as her mother wearily stacked freshly cut peat sods against the outside rear wall of their cabin.

Mary Sullivan paused in her back-breaking task and regarded her daughter in bewilderment. ‘Sure, Maura, and I haven't understood a word that you've said.'

‘Now that Lord Clanmar is back he'll be asking for you to return to Ballacharmish and when he does so, you must go! Please say you will, Ma!
Please!'

Her mother gave an exasperated shake of her head and bent down to lift another sod. Hard physical work and rough living had rendered her old before her time. Although only twenty-nine, her fragile-boned face was gaunt, her hands chapped and calloused. ‘If I didn't know you better, Maura, I'd think Kieron had been feeding you poteen, Lord Clanmar indeed!' She wedged the peat into place, smiling tiredly at her daughter's foolishness. ‘The likes of his lordship don't pay any heed to their domestic staff, Maura, and I'm surprised at you for thinking that they would.'

‘But you were different, Ma!' Maura persisted, her eyes urgent. ‘You didn't come from an agency in Dublin! You were the only person from Killaree
ever
to be employed at Ballacharmish and you're still one of his tenants! Lord Clanmar would remember you, I know he would!'

Her mother stopped what she was doing and pressed a hand to the middle of her back to ease the intolerable ache. A curious expression had come across her face and she was no longer looking at Maura but was gazing beyond the cabins to the dirt-road that led to Ballacharmish.

Maura felt slightly uncomfortable as she always did whenever her mother retreated into a world of her own. After a moment she said hesitantly, ‘I wouldn't be feared of living on my own, Ma. Kieron would call by and …'

Her mother turned towards her, dragging her thoughts back to the present with obvious effort. ‘It's nonsense you're talking, Maura Sullivan, and well you know it,' she said, her usually gentle voice censuringly brisk. ‘Now make yourself useful and hand me up the peat sods.'

Maura bent down and grasped hold of a black, squelchy sod. She couldn't let the conversation end there. Somehow she had to convince her mother of the great changes that were about to take place in their lives. She handed her the sod, saying tenaciously, ‘Now that Lady Dalziel is dead, there's no reason for you not to be a maid once more and to live in and to …'

‘No, Maura.' There was an inflection in her mother's voice that Maura had never heard before, a note of utter finality. She stacked the sod neatly into place then she turned, brushing her hands against the much-mended rags of her skirt, saying a trifle unsteadily, ‘I know the rumours that flew around the valley when I was dismissed from Ballacharmish, but I hadn't realized that they had reached you and that you were believing them and filling your head with nonsensical notions. If I had known I would have told you the truth long ago.'

‘The truth?' Maura's heart began to beat fast and light. ‘But everyone knows the truth, Ma. Lady Dalziel …'

‘Lady Dalziel had nothing whatsoever to do with my being dismissed from Ballacharmish, Maura.'

Her mother's face was very pale and very still and Maura was filled with a sudden, almost overwhelming presentiment of disaster. ‘It's all right, Ma,' she said hastily, not wanting to hear any more, wishing that she had never begun the conversation. ‘I shouldn't have begun talking about Ballacharmish. I …'

‘I left Ballacharmish of my own free will,' her mother continued remorselessly, ‘and I did so for my own private and personal reasons.'