An Embarrassment of Riches (23 page)

‘Here you are, sir,' the seaman said as he escorted them to a quiet corner of the deck. ‘I'll be back with coffee in two shakes of a cat's tail.'

Alexander ignored the growing impertinence of the man's speech and the empty chairs facing out towards the deck-rails. As Maura gratefully sat down, savouring the peace and quiet and relative privacy, he said: ‘I hope you have given due consideration to the proposal I put to you yesterday and that you appreciate the advantages there would be to yourself if you agreed to my request.'

He was talking to her as if he were a lawyer and despite her concern over his obvious mental instability she couldn't help but be amused.

She said as reasonably and placatingly as possible, ‘If you wish to marry in order to please your father, surely you should be looking for a bride among members of your own social circle, Mr Karolyis.'

He stared at her and she felt a slight flush touch her cheeks. He really was the most wonderful-looking man. His sleek, blue-black hair had a habit of tumbling low over his brow and near to, his eyes were not dark, as she had imagined they would be, but smoke-grey and as thick-lashed as a woman's. He said with deliberate emphasis, as if talking to a backward child: ‘You don't seem to understand your own situation, miss …'

‘Maura Sullivan.'

‘Miss Sullivan. By your own admission you are an emigrant without family or friends in America. Over the last twenty years hundreds of thousands of others like you have flooded into America. New York is choking at the seams with unemployed Irish. Cholera and yellow fever are rife in the slums they inhabit. Any woman without a male protector is assumed to be a woman of the streets and harassed accordingly. Those are the conditions that lie in wait for you, Miss Sullivan. And you have an alternative. You can marry me.'

Now it was her turn to stare at him. He was serious. Overhead a seagull screamed, diving for the scraps thrown overboard from the galley. The seaman appeared again, depositing a tray of coffee and biscuits within reach and pocketing another handsome tip for his pains. As she watched him walk away she wondered what Isabel would say of the situation. What Kieron would say.

He had been leaning against the deck-rails conducting the conversation from a distance of several feet. Now he stepped towards her, standing by the side of her chair and looking down at her, so close that she could smell the faint lemon tang of his cologne. For a moment he chewed the corner of his bottom lip, his eyes holding hers, and then he said with breathtaking candour: ‘Please help me, Miss Sullivan. I need you to marry me.'

She stared at him, seized by the most extraordinary sensation. It was as if she were standing giddily on the edge of a precipice. She knew that the sensible thing to do, the sane thing to do, was to step back, to retreat.

And she didn't do so.

The blood was pounding in her ears. Never in her life had she imagined it possible to be so instantly, utterly attracted to another human being. She wanted to do whatever he asked of her. She wanted to be able to ease the suicidal pain etched on his face. She wanted to be his friend and she needed him to be her friend.

Instead of stepping back she stepped forward. Up to the verge of the precipice and over.

‘Yes,' she heard herself saying unsteadily, ‘if my marrying you will help you, Mr Karolyis, and if …'

‘Good!' He looked like a man who had just had an enormous burden lifted from his shoulders. ‘There is a priest aboard ship and he has agreed to perform the ceremony. I'll be in touch to let you know the day and time.' He inclined his head briefly and turned on his heel, beginning to walk away.

‘On board …' It had never occurred to Maura that he wished the marriage to take place instantly. She was speaking to thin air. She sprang from her chair, running after him.

‘Mr Karolyis, please! One moment!'

He halted, turning towards her, an eyebrow raised queryingly.

‘You hadn't explained to me … I mean, I had thought you wanted to marry in New York …'

‘If we marry now you won't have to undergo the indignities of Ellis Island.'

She fought to control her breathing which had become as erratic as if she had been running a long distance. She had forgotten about Ellis Island. About the interminable procedures and inspections that all would-be emigrants had to endure before being allowed into the country.

‘But there are other things …' she said, wondering to which of her scores of questions to give precedence. Why had he chosen her? Was his father dying and was that the reason for the insane hurry? How old was he? What did he do for a living? Had he brothers and sisters and what would they think of his sudden marriage? Had he been as instantly attracted to her as she had been to him?

‘The money will be paid as agreed. It might be best if the captain safeguards it for you until we reach New York. Shall I ask him to do so?'

‘Yes, but …'

The money was the least of all her concerns. She had forgotten all about it and now that he had mentioned it again she knew that she didn't want to take it. It wasn't necessary. She wasn't marrying him for money. She was marrying him because he so transparently needed her. She was marrying him because although she knew nothing whatsoever about him, she had fallen head over heels in love with him.

It was too late to tell him about the money. He was striding away from her and the obsequious seaman was again approaching. As he led the way back below deck to steerage her overriding thought wasn't of her impending marriage, or the bridegroom who was such a mystery to her. It was of the coffee she had so foolishly never poured and tasted.

That night she lay awake for hour after restless hour. She wasn't the only one who was sleepless. Babies cried. Women gossiped in low murmurs. Those who could not tolerate the ship's slightest pitch and roll vomited bile into buckets and bowls.

Maura stared up at the creaking beams above her head. What on earth would Lord Clanmar have said if he could have foreseen the situation? She thought of Alexander; of the fierce intelligence in his grey eyes; of his obvious good breeding. Lord Clanmar would have liked him. And her mother? Maura smiled to herself in the darkness. Her mother would have admired his carefully casual elegance, an elegance that didn't in the slightest detract from his almost aggressive behaviour. And she would have appreciated his having the means to travel first-class.

She turned on her side, trying to sleep. She wondered what his father would be like. If he would like her. If the family life that now so miraculously awaited her in New York would be anything at all like the family life she had enjoyed at Ballacharmish.

The next morning, as she did her best to eat an unappetizing breakfast, a ship's officer entered steerage, seeking her out.

‘Miss Sullivan?'

She nodded. She had never seen an officer in steerage before and from the expression of distaste on his face she suspected it was the first time he had ever had business there.

‘Captain Neills would like a word with you, Miss Sullivan.'

The woman on her left dropped her spoon into her bowl with an astonished clatter. The woman on her right choked on the strong tea she was drinking.

Maura rose to her feet, aware that the word ‘Captain' was spreading among her fellow passengers like wildfire.

‘Captain Neills has asked that you bring your possessions with you, Miss Sullivan.'

Maura hesitated, looking around at her companions. Although wary of her because of the quality of her dress and her nob speech, they all had been friendly towards her. Now it was obvious to them that she was being singled out and offered more comfortable accommodation. And they would think that it was because she was prostituting herself. Suddenly it mattered to her very, very much what was thought of her by her impoverished travelling companions.

‘I would prefer to leave my possessions here for the time being,' she said quietly but firmly.

The officer looked disconcerted but Maura had no intention of changing her mind. She had begun the voyage in steerage and no matter what incredible events were now about to take place, empathy with those she was travelling with decreed that she finish the voyage with them.

She walked from steerage in the officer's wake, knowing that her reputation was in tatters. She wondered what they would all say when she told them that she was about to be married. She wondered if anyone would believe her.

The officer led her what seemed to be the length of the ship and into a well-appointed cabin in which Alexander, Captain Neills and a bewildered priest, were sitting. They rose as she entered and Alexander strode towards her.

He didn't take her arm, or touch her, but he turned to face them with her at his side, saying laconically, ‘Miss Maura Sullivan, gentlemen. My bride-to-be.'

It was an incredible moment, one that Maura knew she would never forget as long as she lived. The captain moved from behind his giant mahogany desk and shook her hand, looking at her dazedly, as if she had materialized out of thin air.

‘And Father Mulcahy, who is to marry us.'

Next to Alexander, who, though not heavily built, had a decidedly whippy look to him and exuded a sense of power under restraint, and the big and burly captain, the priest looked diminutive. He shook her hand perplexedly, mindful of the fat wad of notes that he had been given; notes that the Church would be able to put to good use among the poor of New York.

‘Bless you, my child,' he said sincerely, wondering how and when Mr Karolyis and his fiancée had met; wondering why she had been travelling in steerage with the emigrants; wondering why they wanted to marry now, in such unseemly haste.

‘I have been explaining to your husband-to-be that as he is not a Roman Catholic, he will have to make a solemn promise agreeing that all children born of your union will be raised as Roman Catholics.'

Captain Neills noted her look of startled surprise and grimaced. She hadn't known that her husband-to-be was not a Roman Catholic. He would stake a year's pay on that fact.

Maura was too thrown by the mention of children to make an issue of the revelation that Alexander was a Protestant. All of a sudden it brought home to her the intimacy she was about to embark on. When she married the stranger at her side she would be obliged to go to bed with him. How could she possibly do it? She knew nothing whatsoever about him. The sum total of their relationship was a dozen stilted sentences.

She drew in a deep breath, about to make her apologies; about to flee from the room shamefaced.

Alexander said, ‘Father Mulcahy has kindly agreed to marry us at ten o'clock in the morning here, in the captain's cabin.'

She looked across at him and her knees weakened. She remembered the expression in his eyes when he had looked down at her and asked for her help. She remembered the throb in his dark, rich voice when he had said that he needed to marry her. If going to bed meant touching and holding and loving, then of course she could go to bed with him. When he had walked towards her only a few moments ago, turning and introducing her, she had felt a spasm of disappointment because he had not taken her by the hand. She
wanted
to touch him and to be touched by him. Previously ignorant of sexual desire, from the moment she had first laid eyes on him she had been confounded by it.

‘Yes,' she said, dry-mouthed. Then, in case her extraordinary husband-to-be was under the impression she was travelling in steerage accompanied by a mountain of luggage, she said, ‘I have no other clothes with me. Only the gown I am wearing.'

Captain Neills blanched, certain now that in the words of Stratford's immortal bard, mischief was afoot. There could have been an explanation for her travelling in steerage with the emigrants, though he couldn't easily think what it could be. However, there could be no possible explanation for her travelling minus luggage. Not if she were any sort of a lady.

The priest was looking bewildered, the bridegroom unfazed. He said with a disinterest that shocked even the priest, ‘The gown you are wearing will be perfectly suitable.'

It was Captain Neills who came to her rescue. ‘I will enquire of a couple of my lady passengers and see whether or not a more suitable gown might be borrowed for the occasion, Miss Sullivan.' With rising embarrassment Maura thanked him. What had Alexander Karolyis told him about their relationship? Did Captain Neills know that they had only spoken to each other for the first time the previous day? Did he realize the oddness of what was about to take place? And Father Mulcahy? How on earth had Alexander persuaded him to perform a wedding ceremony at which no banns had been called? A ceremony that would join in Holy Matrimony a Catholic and a Protestant?

‘A cabin has been prepared for you in first-class accommodation, Miss Sullivan,' Captain Neills was saying. ‘A steward will see that your belongings are transferred.'

She said politely, avoiding Alexander Karolyis's eye, ‘Thank you, Captain, but that won't be necessary. I will be completing the voyage in the accommodation in which I began it.'

Three pairs of eyes stared at her disbelievingly. The faint niggle of worry that had disturbed Alexander the previous day now became an avalanche. She was too assured, too articulate. He remembered the ease with which she had used words such as disorientating and gross. Then he remembered the way Powerscourt and his friends had laughed at the way the Irish peasantry cheekily aped their betters. ‘Born mimics' Powerscourt had said of them. It was a common enough ability and although disconcerting, made her no less suitable for his needs.

He dismissed the doubts that had, for a moment, nearly swamped him and said irritably, ‘It would be much more convenient …'

‘I would rather remain where I am,' she interrupted, her voice low and well-modulated. And firm.

Captain Neills was beginning to enjoy himself. He wondered when Mr Alexander Karolyis had last had his wishes thwarted and how he would deal with the matter.