Circle of Friends (18 page)

“What would your heart be full of, going up there?”

“I told you. It’s
your
visit.”

“Help me, Mother.”

“I haven’t been much help to you so far. Do this one on your own.”

“Have you lost interest in me? And what happens to me?” Eve’s chin jutted up as it always did when she was warding off a hurt.

“If you believe that …” Mother Francis began.

“I don’t. It’s just that it’s like a series of dead ends. Even if I
do
get the fees I’ll have to find somewhere to live, some work.”

“One step at a time,” Mother Francis said.

Eve looked at her. Her face had that look she used to have years ago when there was some surprise in store.

“Do you have any ideas?” she asked eagerly.

“My last idea wasn’t very successful now was it? Go to bed, Eve. You’ll need all your strength to deal with the Westwards. Go up there in the late morning. They’ll be going to church at eleven.”

The avenue was full of potholes, and there were clumps of weeds rising in the middle of what must once have been a well-kept drive. Eve wondered if her father had worked on this very road. Mother Francis had always been vague about Jack Malone when pressed. He had been a good man, a kind man and very loving of his little daughter. That was really the sum total of it. And it was what you
would
tell a child, Eve realized.

And about her mother there was even less information. She had looked very beautiful when she was young. She had always been very gracious, Mother Francis had said. But what else could she say about a gardener and the disturbed daughter of the Big House. Eve was determined that she would not lose her clear-sighted way of looking at her background. She had long realized that there was no mileage in
romanticizing her history. She squared her shoulders and approached the house. It was shabbier close up than it looked from the road. The paint on the conservatory was all peeling. The place looked untidy and uncared for. Croquet mallets and hoops were all thrown in a heap as if someone had played a game many months ago, but no one had ever bothered to tidy the set away or to have another game since. There were Wellington boots in the hall, old golf clubs splintering, with their bindings coming undone. Tennis racquets slightly warped stood in a big bronze container.

Through the glass doors Eve could see a hall table weighed down with catalogues and brochures and brown envelopes. It was all so different from the highly polished convent where she lived. A stray piece of paper would never find its way onto the hall table under the picture of Our Lady Queen of Peace. If it did it would soon be rescued and brought to the appropriate place. How extraordinary to live in a house where you could hardly
see
the hall table for all that was covering it.

She rang the bell, knowing that it would be answered by one of three people. Bee, the sister of Paccy Moore, the shoemaker. Bee was the housemaid in Westlands. Or possibly the cook might come to the door if it was Bee’s Sunday off. Mrs. Walsh had been in the family for as long as anyone could remember. She hadn’t come from Knockglen in the first place and didn’t fraternize with the people of the town, even though she was a Catholic and seen at early mass. She was a large woman who looked rather ominous on her bicycle. Or perhaps Simon Westward himself would come to the door. His father was in a wheelchair and reported to be increasingly frail, so he would not appear.

Ever since she could remember, Eve had played a game. It was like not stepping on the cracks in a footpath. It was what Mother Francis would have called a superstition probably. But she had always done it. “If the next bird to hop up in the windowsill is a thrush then I’ll get my exam.
If it is a blackbird, I’ll fail.” “If I have to wait until I count twenty-five at the door of the convent in Dublin, I’m going to hate it.” For some reason she always felt like doing it at doors.

As she stood outside the unfamiliar door of the place that was once her mother’s home, Eve Malone told herself firmly that if Bee Moore, the housemaid, came to the door it would be a good omen, she would get the money. If Simon Westward himself came it would be bad. If it was Mrs. Walsh the thing could go either way. Her eyes were bright as she waited and heard the sound of running feet.

She saw the figure of a schoolgirl, about ten or eleven years old, running toward the door. She reached up to open it and stood looking at Eve with interest. She was wearing the very short tunic that girls in Protestant schools always wore. In the convent everything had to be a bit more droopy and modest. She had her hair tied in two bunches, one sticking out over each ear almost like candles, as if someone was going to pick her up and carry her by them. She wasn’t fat, but she was square and stocky. She had freckles on her nose and her eyes were the same dark blue as her school uniform.

“Hallo,” she said to Eve. “Who are you?”

“Who are
you
?” Eve asked. She wasn’t afraid of anyone in the Big House if they were this size.

“I’m Heather,” the child replied.

“And I’m Eve.”

There was a pause while Heather tried to work something out.

“Who did you come to see?” she said, after some consideration.

Eve looked at her with admiration. The child was trying to work out whether Eve was for the master or for the staff. She had phrased the question perfectly.

“I came to see Simon Westward,” she said.

“Oh, sure, well come in.”

Eve walked behind the little figure through the hall, full
of dark pictures, hunting prints maybe. It was impossible to see. Heather? Heather? She didn’t know of any Heather in the household, but then she didn’t really keep up with who was who in this family. If people in Knockglen spoke of them she didn’t join in the conversation. Sometimes the nuns mentioned them, but Eve would toss her head and turn away. Once she came upon an article about them in the
Social and Personal
magazine and she had turned the pages on angrily in case she would find out any more about them and their goings-on. Benny had always said that if the Westwards had been
her
family she would have wanted to know everything about them and would probably have made a scrapbook as well. But that was Benny all over. She’d probably have been doing their errands for them by now, and thanking them for everything instead of the guarding, the cold indifference, that Eve had nurtured for so long.

“Are you one of Simon’s girl friends?” the child asked conversationally.

“No indeed,” Eve said with no emotion.

They had reached the drawing room. The Sunday papers were spread out on a low coffee table, a sherry decanter and glasses stood on a silver tray. Over by the window in his wheelchair sat Major Charles Westward, his shoulders sloped down and it was obvious even from a distance that he was not really aware of his surroundings. A rug over his knees had partly slipped to the floor.

This man was Eve’s grandfather. Most people hugged their grandfather, they called him Granddad, and sat on his knee. Grandfathers gave you two shilling pieces and took pictures of you on First Communion and Confirmation days. They were proud of you and introduced you to people. This man had never wanted to see Eve, and if he was in the whole of his sense he might have ordered her out of his house, as he had done her mother.

Once upon a time she had thought he might see her from his horse or his car and ask who was that lovely child.
She had a look of the family about her. But that was long ago. She felt no sense of loss looking at him, no wish that things had been different. She was not embarrassed by his infirmity nor upset by looking at him closely after the years of rejection.

Heather looked at her curiously. “I’ll go and find Simon for you now. You’ll be all right here?” she said.

The child’s face was open. Eve found it hard to be stiff with her.

“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” she said gruffly.

Heather smiled at her. “You don’t look like his girl friends usually look.”

“No?”

“No, you look more normal.”

“Oh good.” Despite herself Eve smiled.

The child was still curious. “Is it about the mare?”

“It’s not about the mare. I wouldn’t know a mare from a five-bar gate.”

Heather laughed good-naturedly and headed for the door. Eve surprised herself by giving the information the child had been looking for.

“I’m not one of his girl friends,” she called. “I’m one of his cousins.”

Heather seemed pleased. “Oh, then you’re a cousin of mine too. I’m Simon’s sister.”

Eve said nothing because of a slight lump in her throat. Whatever she had thought would happen when she went to Westlands it was not this. She would never have believed that any Westward would have been pleased to see her.

Mother Francis told Kit Hegarty that there was no need for her to hurry back to Dublin. She could stay as long as she liked, a week maybe.

“Don’t go back too soon. The peace of this place could wear off you if you went back to the city too quickly.”

“Ah, that’s country people for you. You think Dublin is all like O’Connell Street. We’re out in
County
Dublin you see, by the seaside. It’s a grand place full of fresh air.”

Mother Francis knew that the peace of Knockglen had nothing to do with its being in the country or the city. The advantage was the place was far from the home where Frank Hegarty would return no more.

“Still, stay here awhile and take our air.”

“I’m in the way.” Kit had sensed Eve’s eagerness to have Mother Francis to herself.

“On the contrary. You are very helpful in that Eve needs time to talk to other people before she commits herself to
any
plan. There’s no point in she and I going round in circles. Much as I hate it, I realize that she
has
to make up her own mind.”

“You would have made a marvelous mother,” Kit said.

“I don’t know. It’s easier one step removed.”

“You’re not removed. You just manage not to do what all the rest of us wish we didn’t do. You don’t nag.”

“I don’t think you were a nagger either.” Mother Francis smiled.

“Did you not want to marry and have children?” Kit asked.

“I wanted a wild unsuitable farmer’s son that I couldn’t have.”

“Why couldn’t you have him?”

“Because we hadn’t a farm of land to go with me … or so I thought. If he had really wanted me he’d have taken me, farm or no farm.”

“What happened to him?”

“He married a girl who had legs much better than Bunty Brown, and who
did
have a farm to go with her. They had four children in five years, then he found another as they say.”

“And what did the wife do?”

“She made a fool of herself the length and breadth of
the county. That’s not what Bunty Brown would have done.
She
would have thrown him out, started a guesthouse, and held her head high.”

Kit Hegarty laughed. “Are you telling me
you
are Bunty Brown?”

“Not any longer. Not for a long time.”

“He was a fool not to take you.”

“Ah, that’s what I said too. I said it for three years. They didn’t want to take me in the convent at first. They thought I was just running away, trying to hide from the world.”

“And do you regret it, not waiting for a different farmer’s son?”

“No, not a bit.”

Her eyes were far away.

“And you’ve had everything in a way,” Kit said. “You’ve had all the joy of children in a school.”

“It’s true,” Mother Francis said. “Every year, new children, every year new young faces coming in.” She still looked sad.

“It will work out for Eve.”

“Of course it will. She’s probably talking to him now.”

“Who is she talking to?”

“Her cousin, Simon Westward. Asking him for fees. I hope she doesn’t lose her temper. I hope she won’t throw it all away!”

Heather had left the room as soon as her brother came in. Simon went over first to the figure in the wheelchair, picked up the rug, and knelt to tuck it in around the old man. He stood up and came back to the fireplace. He was small and dark, with a thin handsome face, dark-eyed, and his brown hair fell into his eyes. He had had to shake it away so often, it was now a mannerism. He wore riding breeches and a tweed jacket with leather cuffs and elbows.

“What can I do for you?” His voice was cold and polite.

“Do you know who I am?” Eve’s voice was equally cold.

He hesitated. “Not really,” he said.

Her eyes blazed. “Either you do or you don’t,” she said.

“I
think
I do. I asked Mrs. Walsh. She said you were the daughter of my aunt Sarah. Is that right?”

“But you know of me, surely?”

“Yes, of course. I didn’t recognize you coming up the drive, so I asked.”

“What else did Mrs. Walsh say?”

“I don’t think that’s relevant. Now can I ask you what it’s about?”

He was so much in command of the situation that Eve wanted to cry. If only he could have looked ill at ease, guilty about his family’s treatment of her, confused and wondering what lay ahead. But Simon Westward would always know how to handle things like this.

She was silent as she looked at him. Unconsciously imitating his stance, hands behind her back, eyes unflinching, mouth set in a hard thin line. She had dressed carefully, deciding not to wear her best outfit in case he would think she had put it on specially, or had come from mass. Instead she had worn a tartan skirt and gray cardigan. She had a blue scarf tied around her throat in what she had thought was a jaunty look.

Her glance didn’t fall from his stare.

“Would you like a glass of sherry?” he asked, and she knew she had won the first round.

“Thank you.”

“Sweet or dry?”

“I don’t know the difference. I’ve never had either.” She spoke proudly. There was going to be no aping the manners of her betters from Eve Malone. She thought she
saw him raise his eyebrows in surprise that bordered on admiration.

“Then try the sweet. I’ll have that too.” He poured two glasses. “Will you sit down.”

“I’d rather stand. It won’t take long.”