Cashelmara (94 page)

“Now, Kerry,” said my mother kindly but firmly, “you can’t spend all your time running up and down mountains with Ned as if you were a boy. I’ve no objection to you making little expeditions together on Saturdays, but during the week you must both attend to your lessons and try to improve your accomplishments.”

This meant that Kerry had to spend her mornings with Miss Cameron and her afternoons with my mother. Miss Cameron taught her English literature, French and Italian, and my mother supervised her piano practice, instructed her in needlework and tried to teach her to speak with an English accent.

“Though that’s the blind leading the blind, if you ask me,” I overheard Miss Cameron say to Nanny.

“Lady de Salis speaks beautiful English,” said Nanny hotly, always willing to rush to my mother’s defense. “I know she can’t pronounce her A’s properly, but apart from that you’d never know she was a foreigner.”

“Besides,” said my mother to me later, “I’m not aiming to make Kerry sound like an Englishwoman. If I can only induce her to talk like a well-bred American I shall feel that my efforts haven’t been entirely fruitless.”

Kerry seemed to take these efforts good-naturedly, so I didn’t worry about her. I was enjoying summer once again. The mornings were always wasted with Mr. Watson, but three times a week I met my friends on the mountainside, and although this meant I had to stay up late to complete my schoolwork I didn’t care. I had discovered I didn’t need much sleep, and even if I went to bed after midnight I would often get up at dawn to watch the sun rise over the lough.

It was at the end of July that I discovered Kerry wasn’t happy. Since it was a Saturday we had decided to take a picnic lunch up to the ruined cabin and then walk to Devilsmother before returning home for tea. Naturally all three of the little ones had wanted to come with us, but for once I had insisted very firmly that they remain behind.

“They could never walk to Devilsmother and back,” I explained to my mother. “They’d wilt and be a nuisance.”

“Well, you could at least let them share your picnic with you!” said my mother.

“Another time—with pleasure,” I said. “But not today.”

“Why not?” said my mother, instantly suspicious although I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why she should be.

“Because I get the chance for an outing with Kerry only once a week,” I said reasonably, “and although as a rule I don’t mind the others coming too, on this particular occasion when I intend to go for a long walk I don’t want them with me.”

“Well, I’m not at all sure I approve,” said my mother and added, as if she felt she had to give me an explanation, “I think you’re being rather selfish.”

“Honestly, Mama, what a mountain you’re making out of a molehill!”

“Ned!”

“Well, I’m sorry, but really!”

I thought my mother might go on protesting, but evidently she realized the futility of further protests, for she let us go.

Halfway to the ruined cabin Kerry said, “I’m glad you stood up to your ma. I wouldn’t have minded if the little ones had come, but your ma’s always trying to spoil my fun.”

I stopped. “Is she?”

“We-ell …” Kerry kicked a twig with her heel. After a moment she said, “She’s not like my ma, you know.” And then after a longer moment she added, “I wish my ma was here,” and burst into tears.

I was appalled. The sight of any Gallagher in tears contradicted all they represented to me, and I felt as if I were witnessing some terrible profanity. I groped for words but could find none. When I fumbled for a handkerchief instead I found that the only one I possessed was dirty, and my helplessness reduced me to such misery that I could only gaze at her in despair.

“Say something!” Kerry wept. “How dare you stand there like a stuffed dummy!”

I said the first thing that came into my head. “You poor, poor Pudding-Face. Why didn’t you tell me before that you were homesick?”

She gulped, snatched the dirty handkerchief from my hand and blew her nose on a clean corner. “I thought you’d think I was ever so ungrateful and mean,” she said. “I know how you love Cashelmara. I didn’t think you’d understand.”

“You thought I wouldn’t understand? You were homesick—and you thought
I wouldn’t understand?
How do you suppose I felt in America when Drummond and my mother dragged me around with them and I didn’t know when I was ever going to see my home again?”

She sniffed and dabbed each eye with another clean corner. “Well, I knew you were kind of peculiar when we first met you,” she said, “but I didn’t know it was because you were homesick. You were awful quiet and never smiled and just sat in a corner being good. Clare and I thought you were real strange before we got to know you.”

“Meeting you and Clare was the best thing that ever happened to me in America.”

“Oh my!” she said. “That don’t say much for what happened to you in America!” And to my enormous relief she giggled.

“Well, it was so difficult,” I said, “about my mother and Drummond.”

“I guess it was. Do you know, Ma still doesn’t know they’re not married? Pa made me swear on the Bible I wouldn’t tell her in my letters.”

“Were you shocked when he told you?”

“Sure, but Pa explained it all beautifully. He said that I’d have to know the ways of the world one day, so I might as well learn them sooner rather than later. He said your ma and Mr. Drummond were so much in love that they were just as good as married, but Mr. Drummond was real smart about it and pretended to live in a separate house so there’d be no scandal. He said that of course it was a terrible sin and I must never think of doing such a wicked thing myself or God would punish me, but your mother had had such a hard life that this was God’s way of giving her a little reward. He didn’t say why it had been so hard, but he said it was hard enough for God to be sympathetic and make allowances. And he said ever such nice things about your ma and what a lady she was and how I must be sure to do all I could to please her.”

I heard a stifled sob. “Has my mother been unkind to you?”

“We-ell …”

“Has she?”

“She don’t like me one bit,” said Kerry bravely, giving me back the handkerchief. “She tries to, but she acts like she was Our Blessed Lord and I was the Cross. She makes me feel ugly and dumb and shoddy. Well, I know I’m shoddy, but Pa and Ma never made me feel I was ugly and dumb, and they know me better than she does.”

“I like you just the way you are,” I said.

“Ugly, dumb and shoddy?”

“Rather!”

She giggled again, and this time I laughed too and took her hand in mine.

“Kerry, I can hardly believe my mother would have been so unkind, but if you promise me it’s true I’ll ask Mr. Drummond to have a word with her about it. She won’t listen to me, but she’ll listen to him.”

“No,” she said, “don’t say anything. I feel better now I can count on you for sympathy, and if Mr. Drummond hears about it he might tell Pa and Pa would take me away.”

“But mightn’t that suit you? If you’re so homesick—”

“Do you want me to go?”

“Not a bit!”

“Oh good, then I’ll stay. I don’t truly want to go home. I’d feel such a failure and Pa would be so disappointed.”

We had reached the ruined cabin. I set down the picnic basket and raided the store of peat my friends and I kept for our fires.

“My, isn’t this fun!” said Kerry, producing a bag of humbugs from somewhere beneath her petticoats. “This must be the nicest part about being an Irish peasant—sitting around by the peat fire with nothing to do but look at the beautiful scenery and tell stories! The trouble with the older people is they forget all the happy times and remember only the famines and the wicked agents. When I’m old I’m going to remember all the nice things. I shall summon my twelve children to my side and—”

“Twelve children!”

“Well, I guess I’ll have at least twelve, don’t you? After all, if we get married when I’m eighteen …”

She saw my expression and stopped. I remember very well how surprised she looked. There was no coyness, no embarrassment, just that innocent surprise.

“Who says we’re getting married?” I said. “I’m not marrying anyone.” Realizing this sounded very rude, I added hastily, “Of course if I married anyone I’d marry you, but I’ve decided to be a bachelor.”

“But you can’t do that!” exclaimed Kerry.

“Well, it’s possible that I might marry when I’m fifty to beget an heir. But I couldn’t ask you to wait another thirty-five years. It wouldn’t be fair.”

‘‘But …” She was dumfounded. At last she managed to say, “You mean you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“It’s all arranged! Pa told me on the boat when he told me about your ma and Mr. Drummond!”

“Oh, Kerry, your father was telling a tall story!”

“He was not so!” She was very serious and almost angry. “It’s the truth! He and Mr. Drummond did a deal. He—”

“Drummond!” I leaped to my feet “What the devil’s Drummond got to do with this?”

“Well, Pa got Mr. Drummond his pardon and gave him money—”

“Money!”

“Yes, so that you could go back to Ireland comfortably, and Mr. Drummond promised in return that I could come to stay and … well, get married later. Mr. Drummond said he would see your mother didn’t stand in our way if you wanted to marry me, and Pa said Mr. Drummond could have more money if the match came off.”

“My God,” I said.

“Pa said I needn’t marry you if I didn’t want to, but I thought it would be so romantic—just like the old days in Ireland when people married young and everyone had a hand in the match-making.”

I walked out At the back of the cabin I leaned my forehead against the cold stone wall and closed my eyes. I was shaking with rage.

When I opened my eyes again I saw she had followed me. I straightened my back. It was very quiet and nothing moved as far as the eye could see.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you knew or I’d never have mentioned it. Please don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m not angry with you,” I said. “I’m angry with that bastard Maxwell Drummond.”

I began to talk about Drummond. I gave voice to thoughts and emotions I had never known I possessed. So long as I had taken my mother’s side against my father I had suppressed any feelings of antagonism toward her, but now that I was no longer opposed to my father I discovered my view of my mother was changing focus. It was changing now as I watched. I wasn’t looking at Kerry. I talked mostly to the ruined wall in front of me, but all I saw was my mother and Maxwell Drummond.

I said that Drummond had degraded my mother, that he had ruined her and dragged her down with him into the gutter so that even her own brother had called her a whore. I said their behavior was disgusting and that I despised them for it. I even talked about the creaking bed and how revolting it had been. I said I was never going to have anything to do with such filth for as long as I lived and that I was never going to fall in love with anyone, male or female.

I stopped when I said that because I didn’t want Kerry to know about my father, but when I turned around to catch her expression I found she was no longer there.

I ran to the front of the cabin, my glance scanning the hillside, but there was no sign of her. I plunged through the doorway. She was inside, huddled in a corner, her hands pressed against her eyes as she cried.

“Kerry …” Again I stood helplessly, appalled to see her grief, yet not knowing what I could do. In the end I reached out dumbly and touched her. I put one finger on her arm, and when she let her hands fall from her face I caught them in mine and held them.

At last she said unsteadily, “You do like me a little, though, don’t you?”

“Oh, Kerry, of course I do! Of course!”

“I shan’t mind so long as you like me a little. I’ll get over it real quick, you’ll see. I’ll never even mention it again to you.”

“I didn’t mean … I’m sorry.”

“It was my fault,” she said. “I know it. Please say you’ll try and forgive me, Ned, for upsetting you so much.”

I stared at her. Her eyes shone with tears, and the tears darkened her sandy lashes until they seemed very long. For no good reason I touched her cheek with my finger and found that her skin was softer than my mother’s, soft and rich and smooth. My finger trailed downward, brushing her lips, tracing the line of her neck and falling noiselessly to her breasts. I paused, followed the curve of her left breast and paused again. It was bright in the cabin. Outside the sun was sparkling on the waters of the lough far below, and beyond the doorway a sprig of heather swayed lazily in a faint breeze from the mountains.

Resting my left hand against the wall above her head, I slipped my right hand all the way around her waist and stooped to kiss her on the cheek.

The next thing I knew I was kissing her on the mouth. Her arms had slipped behind my head, and her body was shaping itself against mine.

Closing my eyes, I forgot my mother and Drummond, forgot the creaking bed and the misery of my repulsion. I was beyond the reach of the past at last, aware of nothing but an immense sensuous heat as if I were wading through warm luscious water to swim in a sparkling, beckoning sea. I drew nearer and the sea was very close. I wanted to dive forward out of my depth and swim until the waves swept over my head, but Kerry was pushing me back. I could feel her hands on my chest, but when I opened my eyes I saw she was smiling at me radiantly.

We didn’t speak for a while. Then she said with a shy, self-conscious laugh that sounded most unlike her, “Ned, tell me the truth. I haven’t lost my virginity yet, have I, by any chance?”

She wore such a funny, worried expression that it never occurred to me to tease her.

“No,” I said.

“Praise be!” she exclaimed in relief. “The nuns at Sunday school said that was the worst thing that could happen to a girl, and men were always to blame.”

I smiled. She giggled, and suddenly we were friends again, and the sparkling waters of that beckoning sea were no more than a pattern of lights dancing at the extreme edge of my mind.

I didn’t think of Drummond until much later when I saw him at dinner. We had a glass of port together afterward and he asked me how I was getting on with Kerry.