Another Heartbeat in the House (20 page)

Sitting down at the writing desk between the two windows, Edie reached for the pile of legal documents that she had been trying to put into some semblance of order, so that Uncle Jack could go through them. She ran her eyes over a survey for Prospect House commissioned in 1885. Except it hadn't been called Prospect House then. It had been called by an Irish name – Lissaguirra. That's when the place had been bought by a member of the Frobisher family, some antecedent of Uncle Jack's, and the name changed: there was the certification dated, stamped and registered to a P. Frobisher, Esq.

The land immediately surrounding the house was estimated to comprise ‘2 acres, 3 roods, 6 perch, or thereabouts', plus fishing rights. In a column headed ‘Observations' on a yellowing document from the Valuation Office, the following legend had been written in a clerk's careful hand: ‘Value reduced one half for extreme remoteness of situation: dwelling is approached by a bridle path 1/2 mile away from a very bad road.' It made the house sound like an end-of-sale bargain, or something left over from a jumble sale. Edie trusted it would fetch a decent price for Uncle Jack, now that the new road had been built and the place was more accessible.

There were no records dating back earlier than the 1885 survey. But the house had been built more than forty years before that; there was the date to prove it, carved into the shutter of the library window with its wreath of oak leaves surmounted by an ace of spades: 1841.

Edie stood up from the desk, stretched, pulled her hair into a scrappy ponytail and secured it with an elastic band. She hadn't washed it since she'd come here, because the plumbing was too primitive. The bathroom was in an annexe partitioned off from the master bedroom, and the bath was a great antiquated beast on clawed feet that had probably been put in by the first Frobisher. It took hours to fill so – apart from one piddling lukewarm bath an inch deep – Edie had limited her washing to a swipe or two with a flannel in cold water at the washstand in her bedroom. She would adore to soak in a really luxurious bath, with bubbles and a book and a box of chocolates. In a hotel, perhaps, with a lover waiting for her on a balcony, overlooking the sea somewhere with hot blue skies. Maybe Ian had the right idea, dallying in a deluxe hotel in Deauville.

But could a sea view beat this one? The sun was dancing diamantine on the lake, and a pair of swans had drifted in from their nest in a reed bed. They were residents: Edie had seen them earlier in the week when she had strolled down there with Milo. He had eyed them suspiciously and made the occasional feinting lunge at them, but the swans had just given him a disdainful look and sailed on.

‘Listen!' Milo said now, pricking up his ears and frowning. ‘There's someone in the house.'

Edie froze. Milo was right: someone had come in through the kitchen door. She could hear the scraping noise it made against the tiled floor.

‘Hello!' called the person. ‘Is anyone in?'

It was a man's voice.

Milo immediately jumped down from the footstool he had been sitting on, and trotted out of the room going ‘Grrrr'. Edie wrapped her dressing gown tighter around her, secured the knot, and followed her intrepid hound on rather more cautious feet.

The man in the kitchen was big, bluff and florid, nattily got up in a double-breasted suit and a paisley-patterned bow tie. He doffed his hat as Edie stepped into the room and said, ‘Good morning! Miss Chadwick, I presume? I'm pleased to meet you. Francis Quilligan of Quilligan & Quilligan Auctioneers and Valuers.'

‘How do you do?' said Edie, taking his proffered hand.

‘I'm sorry to arrive unheralded like this, but there was no way of letting you know I was coming.
Aire Puist agus Telegrafa
haven't got this far yet.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Posts and Telegraphs.'

‘Oh, don't worry, I'm perfectly happy without a telephone. There's one at the crossroads if I need to make a call.'

Edie was aware how disreputable she must look in contrast to Mr Quilligan, in her slippers and candlewick robe that had paw prints all over it and a jam stain on the lapel.

‘Will you have a cup of tea, Mr Quilligan?' she asked, trying to appear as gracious as if she were decked out in a hostess gown.

‘If it's no trouble.'

‘No trouble at all. Please take a seat. I'd ask you into the drawing room, but everything's such a mess in there with the packing cases and everything, and it's warmer here in the kitchen.'

‘The heart of the home!'

Pinning on a smile, Edie set about putting fresh water on to boil and transferring milk from the bottle she had left by the sink into a jug. Her mother would have been appalled to think she had been pouring milk into her tea straight from the bottle!

‘Ginger nut!' she said, reaching for the packet, then felt a rush of discomfiture because Mr Quilligan had such quantities of tufty carroty hair. ‘I mean, would you like a Ginger Nut biscuit?' she amended.

‘My favourites!'

‘Mine too!'

Once the tea things were organized and she and Mr Quilligan had exchanged pleasantries about biscuits and the weather, Edie sat down opposite him at the kitchen table.

‘I just dropped by to tell you that I have an interested party coming to have a look around,' he said.

‘So soon! Goodness! The place is in an awful state.'

‘Don't worry. Whoever buys it isn't going to be concerned about dust on the picture frames. Have you seen the advertisement?'

‘No.'

‘I'll put one in the post to you. Anyways, you seem to be doing a great job here, more power to you. I saw a pile of junk in the stable on my way in – I'll organize someone to take it to the dump for you.'

‘Thank you. I've sorted the sheep from the goats, as it were, and stored anything that might be worth a few bob in the drawing room – apart from the heavier items of furniture, of course.'

‘Find anything interesting?'

‘Yes – masses! There are some ripping clothes that must be at least a century old, and some press cuttings and journals and things.'

Mr Quilligan looked unimpressed. ‘Any accredited documents?'

‘A few official-looking things. I should probably let you have a look at those. Old Land Registry maps and records from the Valuation Office and suchlike. I suppose Uncle Jack – Mr Frobisher – has all the important stuff.'

‘He'll have copies, anyway. The originals were all destroyed in the War of Independence.'

Edie's bemused expression must have betrayed her lamentable ignorance of political history, because Mr Quilligan went on to explain:

‘The National Archives were housed in the Four Courts in Dublin during the rising. Record books dating back centuries were used in the barricades and blown up – Lissaguirra's among them.'

‘Goodness.' She humbly proffered another Ginger Nut. ‘You call the house by its old name?'

‘Out of habit. But Prospect View is the name on the advertisement.'

‘Who lived here originally, back in the 1840s?'

‘One of the St Legers was said to have built it.'

‘I'd love to know more. There's … an atmosphere.'

‘So you've seen the ghost?'

‘What ghost?'

‘A little joke!' said Mr Quilligan with an unconvincing laugh. ‘Everyone has a story about the place. Little girls in nightdresses and old ladies in evening gowns and phantom horsemen: sure the woods are coming down with them, if you were to credit half the tales that are told.'

Edie did not want to hear about more spooky shenanigans. ‘Will you have another cup of tea?' she asked.

‘No, thank you kindly, Miss Chadwick. I'd best be off. I just dropped in to warn you, so I did, about the gentleman that will be calling to view the property.'

‘Thank you. I'll do what I can to smarten the place up.'

‘As I said, there's no need. The same gentleman'll not want to be holding garden parties here.' Mr Quilligan rose to his feet.

‘Grrr,' said Milo.

‘Arra why would you be worrying about ghosts?' he said with a laugh. ‘Isn't that a grand little guard dog you have there? Good day to you, Miss Chadwick.'

‘Good day, Mr Quilligan.'

Edie watched as he crossed the stable yard and got into a shiny green Austin. He tooted his horn as he started the ignition, and then he was gone, leaving Edie alone with Milo and Eliza Drury.

As I had often observed to William when he was in a funk, good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society. In the months that followed my arrival at Doneraile Court I sang, I played, I laughed, I conjured gaiety from the simplest things, and Lady Charlotte and her pug, Sooty, soon learned to love me. I organized
conversazioni
; I devised theatricals and parlour games; I marshalled wassailers at Christmas time, and staged a masque for St Valentine's Day. I enticed everybody from society to the house, and I made Her Ladyship believe that it was her graciousness and wit that gathered the beau monde of North Cork about her.

At dinners, ancient, doughty warriors exhausted me with tales of battles and victories at Waterloo, self-described wags made my face ache and learned lords fascinated me with soliloquies from Shakespeare; at dances, cavaliers abducted me, and dashed me around the floor like winged Mercuries; at musical evenings I might listen to a lament honked on the national bagpipe, or an Irish folk melody scratched upon a fiddle. Sometimes I was obliged to accompany divertimenti from
William Tell
or
The Barber of Seville
while milady played the harp, and on one occasion I was quite unable to hold back the tears as a debutante sang an aria from last season by one of the most
en vogue
London composers.

St Leger came often, sometimes riding alone on his gallant chestnut hunter, sometimes with his wife in the phaeton, or the landau when it rained. Her name was Sophia; she was frail-looking, with dun-coloured hair and pale eyelashes. She spoke seldom, and declined all invitations to join in games. It seemed to me that she did not like to laugh. Maria had told me that she resented having been plucked from her father's mansion in Buckinghamshire and set down to live among the barbarous Irish beyond the Pale. She had met St Leger while on a visit to the County Cork estate of her cousin, Sir Silas Sillery, but had not expected that her spouse would have chosen to spend more time on his Irish demesne – where he could ride from dawn until dusk – than at their London town house.

Sequestered with her one day when her husband had come to speak to Lord Doneraile on some equestrian matter, I asked what pastimes gave her most pleasure. She enjoyed needlework, she told me, showing me the exquisite piece of embroidery in her hands. In lustrous silks, and with tiny, couched stitches, she had worked a tree upon which flowers in jewel-like colours bloomed, and strange fruits glowed. A motto, half finished, read
Fais ce que
…

‘It is beautiful,' I told her.

‘Thank you. It depicts the tree of knowledge. It is for a fire screen.'

‘How will the motto read, when it is finished?' I asked, expecting her answer to be some housewifely homily or facile epigram.

‘
Fais ce que tu voudras
,' she told me.

‘Do as you please?'

‘Yes. It was a motto coined by one of St Leger's ancestors. A member of the Hell-Fire Club.'

I saw now, half concealed by the foliage of the tree, a serpent within its branches, its eyes worked in silver thread.

‘It is remarkably fine,' I said, as I returned it to her.

‘It gives me great pleasure.'

What other talents had she? I enquired.

‘I have none of your accomplishments, Miss Drury,' she replied. ‘The tranquil
andante
of our country life seems to have transformed itself since your arrival into an
allegro vivace
.'

I plucked at the musical reference.

Did she sing? No. Play? Yes – the piano, a little. She started to work the downward stroke of the ‘
t
' in ‘
tu
'. Did she ride to hounds? Oh, no! Did she draw? No. Did she read? No. Did she not like to read with her husband after dinner? Reaching for another skein of silk, she gave a little shrug. After dinner, she generally left her husband to his cigars and brandy and retired to the drawing room where she was content to be alone with her embroidery. Although, she added, executing a series of precise stitches, sometimes she wished that she had a little companion to sit by her in the evening.

‘A dog?' I asked.

The look she gave me with her silver eyes made me amend my conjecture.

‘A child,' I said.

We sat in silence for a while, then: Did she hope for a son? I ventured to enquire.

Yes, but she had been told it was not God's will to grant her any children.

She dug the needle into the canvas as she said this, and bit down on her lip. Then she said an astonishing thing.