The Fox's Walk (14 page)

This activity was, in theory, kept from the maids whom, they supposed, would regard it as devil's work. It scared the wits out of me when I first discovered its existence; and even more so when I improved my reading with literature from the Society for Psychical Research, which arrived regularly by post at Ballydavid. I even dipped into one or two books by the society's founder, Sir Oliver Lodge, and found the descriptions of communications from the other side alternatively frightening and boring. The women of my family—along with women and some men all over the British Isles—were searching for evidence or, at least, hope that there might be a life beyond this one. And that that life would offer a reunion with a lost son or husband—more often a son, the unnatural reversal of the generational order inspiring these desperate measures. And, in the meantime, they looked for a message or some other form of reassurance.

The maids did, in fact, consider whatever happened in the forbidden, darkened drawing room an attempt, more than probably successful, to conjure up the devil. I could have told Grandmother that they were not as shocked as she might have imagined. Since my family were Protestants, we were automatically going to burn in hell for all eternity, so whatever took place in the drawing room after tea merely anticipated—and only slightly, given the age of the two old ladies—their inevitable meeting with the Prince of Darkness. Illogically but, I think, understandably, I was more frightened of meeting the devil at Ballydavid than I was of a future, and apparently guaranteed, longer acquaintanceship on his home ground.

Between them, the maids and Grandmother and Aunt Katie drove me out of doors most afternoons. To where O'Neill waited to give me my daily riding lesson.

 

THE LONG SAD SUMMER
drew to a close. It would be going too far to say that I had learned to amuse myself, but my days developed a rhythm, and each no longer stretched before me like an endless desolate waste, broken only by meals and moments of predictable anxiety. I still missed my mother terribly, especially at night, and I thought more affectionately and less critically of Edward than when he and I had shared the night nursery at Palace Gardens Terrace.

September began mild, warm, and still. It was the month of my birthday. Despite their grief and the unrelieved atmosphere of mourning at Ballydavid, both the old ladies rose to the occasion. I was to have a birthday party.

The procedure for entertaining at Ballydavid left Aunt Katie in charge of the arrangements for my party. Grandmother, of course, composed the guest list. It was a division of labor that, I think, suited both. My great-aunt had a talent for the practical aspects of entertaining, and a prodigious memory. She remembered the culinary likes and dislikes of everyone who had ever eaten lunch or dinner at Ballydavid. “Major Gibbon is coming to lunch,” she might say. “His favorite is roly-poly pudding.” And roly-poly pudding would be served. Aunt Katie was famous for her light hand in the making of pastry, and for special occasions she would make a steak and kidney pie.

When Grandmother visited the kitchen, which was not often, she would stand just inside the door, staying only for as long as it took to make a pronouncement or to inspect some aspect of domestic life that could not be brought to her in the drawing room. One had the impression of skirts drawn in to avoid the contamination of the lower things in life. But Aunt Katie, when the occasion warranted it, would push back her sleeves and, surrounded by an admiring audience, roll out pastry on the floured kitchen table. It was the performance of an artist. Maggie, the cook, herself talented enough to satisfy the standards of Grandmother, watched with respect.

Aunt Katie had married late in life. She was childless, a second wife, and an affectionate stepmother. When I was grown up and married myself, my mother hinted that Aunt Katie and Uncle Jack had entered into a
manage blanc.
A mutually convenient arrangement that gave her the status and power of marriage and him an unusually accomplished housekeeper to whom he turned over the upbringing of a son—my uncle William—for whom he felt limited affection.

To be Mrs. Martyn of Ballinamona Park was certainly preferable to life as an aging spinster on a small fixed income but, given my great-aunt's nature, it is sad that in all likelihood she died a virgin. A certain wistfulness and a liking for romantic novels—she would refer to one she was enjoying as “a pretty story”—suggested that she might have valued love and sexuality to a greater extent than did, say, my grandmother. And her gentle nature made her more motherly than was her sister. Aunt Katie to a large extent brought up Grandmother's children. My mother, Uncle Hubert, and Uncle Sainthill, the three that had survived early childhood, had come back to live with her at Ballinamona Park until Grandfather finished his Indian tour of duty.

I watched Grandmother approach the guest list in her usual hard-minded manner. Ready to consult her last and socially precise record in order to elevate some child who would glow with happiness and gratitude (or at least its parents were meant to) with the unexpected pleasure and privilege of an invitation to Ballydavid. She was ready also to strike from the list some child who might reasonably expect to be invited but whose parents had incurred Grandmother's displeasure, often in some quite arbitrary way, since the last party. The problem was that there was no last party of this kind and no list. There had not been a children's party at Ballydavid since my uncle Sainthill was a child. Many of the boys who had been at that party now lay, as he did, in soldiers' graves in France.

Grandmother was driven to consult Aunt Katie, who, more in touch with the lives of their neighbors, explained to her that most of her candidates were already in uniform while others were still in their cradles. Eventually even I was consulted. My only suggestion, once the maids had been vetoed, was Mrs. Coughlan. Grandmother gave me a sharp look, but, since her guest list now consisted only of names scratched out, she wrote Mrs. Coughlan's name at the top of a clean sheet of paper.

In the end, three children were invited. One was the little girl with whom I would be sharing lessons, and the other two were sons of neighbors. I knew none of them.

On the morning of my ninth birthday, I came down to breakfast as usual. I was curious about what my presents would be and when I would be given them. Several packages had arrived during the past few days, one from London and two from Dublin. They had been whisked away before I could test their weight or consistency. Grandmother and Aunt Katie were already at table when I entered the dining room a little breathlessly.

“Good morning, Alice.” Grandmother said. “Happy Birthday.” “And many happy returns,” Aunt Katie added. Her tone was the warmer of the two. Grandmother seemed subdued rather than chilly. I sat down and tapped the top of my boiled egg with an egg spoon. Aunt Katie engaged me in conversation; evidently the convention that I should be silent and invisible at meals had been suspended as part of the celebrations of the day.

“You have a new frock for your party,” Aunt Katie said. “Sent down from Switzer's. I think it will fit you, but you should try it on after breakfast so I can put a stitch in it if needs be.”

A party dress was a very satisfactory solution to the mystery of one of the parcels, and there still remained one unaccounted for. I lost the little appetite I had but knew better than to leave food on my plate. Grandmother was paying me more attention than I was used to, so I sat up straight and was careful with my table manners. When I looked up she was still watching me, her face expressionless. She made me nervous and I dropped a finger of buttered toast down my front. Although her eyes were on me, she didn't seem to notice. I glanced at my great-aunt; very often her expression would provide encouragement or reassurance, or she would, with a tactful word, let me know what I should, or should not, do.

“I thought, Alice, we would have egg-and-cress sandwiches, chocolate biscuits, and a sponge cake. Maggie has made her special birthday cake. Do you think———” and she went on to discuss details of the party. It was a subject of some interest to me and, I think, to her. At the same time I could feel that she was deliberately diverting my attention from Grandmother and that she was doing so to avert some awkwardness or embarrassment that I could not imagine. Not one, I had the impression, for which I was responsible.

Breakfast ended and we got up from the table. Grandmother used to sit in the drawing room after breakfast and read the
Morning Post
which came in the first mail. Sometimes Aunt Katie would join her with her needlework so that Grandmother could read aloud the parts that most outraged her—usually pertaining to the grateless and feckless Irish in whose midst she had the misfortune to live. I hesitated by the door, hoping Aunt Katie would take me to her room to try on my dress. She had just turned toward me when Grandmother spoke my name.

“Alice, come here.”

She spoke gently, and I did not feel the usual twinge of alarm that came with the full weight of her attention. I went over to her. She was sitting in her straight-backed chair beside the fireplace.

I stood in front of her and waited to see what she would say next. I could feel my great-aunts immobile presence behind me. Grandmother looked at me long and searchingly. After a moment she took my hand gently and I dropped my eyes. Her hand was cool and dry; I tried not to look at the veins that stood out on the back of it. I heard Aunt Katie's skirt rustle behind me. Then Grandmother raised her hand and took my chin between her finger and thumb to turn my face toward the light of the window. Outside a lovely late summer day boded well for my party. I was aware of a harmony between the color of my grandmothers dress, the upholstery of her chair, and the heavy, faded velvet curtains that framed the window. After a long moment she kissed me on the forehead, sighed, and let go of my face.

“Now run along. Don't keep Aunt Katie waiting.”

My great-aunt led me silently up to her room and waited until I was standing on a footstool in my new dress before she spoke.

“Just a dart on either side and it will be perfect. What a skinny little thing you are.”

I held my breath while she stuck two pins into either side of the bodice of the white linen dress. I would have chosen something frillier and more colorful, but I could see that the lace insets made the dress pretty and there was a gratifyingly wide sash that tied behind me in a big bow. Because of my father's financial reverses, it had been some time since I had had a new dress.

“Grandmother ... I don't think you know,” she said, from somewhere around my knees as she tugged at the hem to make sure it sat straight, “but today would also have been your uncle Saint's birthday. He would have been twenty-three.”

I now faintly remembered having been told (before it had its present associations and while it was still merely a pleasant coincidence) that I shared a birthday with my uncle. My uncle and I had the same coloring and there was, I knew, a family resemblance. I noticed then that my great-aunt's eyes were pink and swollen, but she was smiling up at me. Grandmother ate lunch in her room on a tray and did not reappear for the rest of the day.

The morning passed slowly. Aunt Katie and the maids smiled encouragingly each time they saw me, but there was no planned activity until my guests arrived for tea. Aunt Katie allowed me just to pick at my lunch, and I was sent to my room to rest. I can't imagine anyone thought I would sleep, and I spent an hour leaning on the window sill, watching Patience, head down and tail flicking away flies, grazing in the field below the lawn. Then I brushed my hair in front of the looking glass and regarded my reflection with largely unwarranted satisfaction. Soon it was time to get dressed. Bridie came to my room, arranged my hair, and did up the buttons down the back of my new dress and tied my sash in large crisp bow. I was ready.

Downstairs, the atmosphere was suspiciously calm; I wondered for a moment if my party had been forgotten. But tea for four children had apparently been taken in stride by Aunt Katie and the maids. I sat quietly on a footstool with my dress and sash spread out behind me so that I should not crush them before my guests arrived. The needlepoint felt rough and scratchy on my bare legs, but I had lived long enough at Ballydavid not to fidget. Now, for the first time, I began to worry about the tea party. I had never met any of my guests and was unable to imagine what would happen after the introductions. Would we stand about awkwardly, looking at our feet? Or would my guests be sophisticated enough to come prepared with the small talk that adults employed on these occasions? Or, worse still, and the most likely, might not the other children already be friends, delighted to see one another, and ignore me, their hostess and a stranger?

Nervously, I excused myself and went upstairs to the bathroom. Aunt Katie, matching a strand of wool for her needlework, nodded approvingly at my foresight. When I came back, the first guest had arrived, but none of the mortifying scenarios I'd imagined had taken place.

Mrs. Coughlan, resplendent in pink and gray—her dress more beautiful and less eccentric than the first time I had met her, although a good deal more interesting than one had any right to expect in County Waterford—was sitting in the drawing room, talking to Aunt Katie. Her face lit up when I came in; I was delighted to see her and flattered that she seemed as pleased to see me. It is possible that I was the only person in the neighborhood who fully and unreservedly appreciated her vulgar, generous nature, her sense of the dramatic, and her demand that life should provide a little more color than that offered by provincial Protestant society. She handed me a package conventionally wrapped but tied with the largest ribbon bow I had ever seen. I glanced at Aunt Katie, well aware of the convention that presents should be unwrapped all at the same appropriate time.

“Open it, Alice,” she said, a slight nervousness in her voice suggesting that I should do so quickly, before anyone else arrived.