The Fox's Walk (16 page)

“Right,” Jarvis said, in a businesslike voice. “Where are those presents?”

***

THE EVENING OF
the day after my birthday Grandmother and I went for a walk. To be taken for a long walk by a forbidding old lady might not seem to a modern child much of a treat, but to me it was an indication of my place in the household. Grandmother would not herself have taken a child for a walk in order to make sure that child was getting enough exercise.

As I went upstairs to change my shoes, I considered my apparent new status. The cause seemed simple: my age and my appearance. I was uncomfortably aware that this benefit—if benefit indeed it were—had not accrued through any action or virtue of my own. I had been living at Ballydavid for some months and enough time had passed for my birthday to occur. How I looked was again an aspect of myself over which I had little control. Grandmother had, the day before, held my face to the light in search of a resemblance to her dead son. Over the years I used to study my face—age would now make it a fruitless exercise—comparing my features with those of Uncle Sainthill in old photographs. Beyond a mild family resemblance I cannot find what it was that she saw there, the quality that persuaded her that I could, if brought up under her auspices, in some ways take his place.

Since I had come to live at Ballydavid, I had gathered evidence with far greater urgency than I had ever found necessary in London, and now two overheard words seemed to me to provide significant clues—both to my present domicile and to my invitation to accompany Grandmother on her evening constitutional. The words were “pretty” and “heiress”; the former overheard at Ballydavid, the latter—with an ironic overtone—at Glenbeg.

That my future—if I were to have one at Ballydavid—depended so little on my own effort or moral worth was a circumstance not individual to me. There was no virtue to which Grandmother ascribed greater value than she did to family or, in a woman, to classical features. On the latter qualities she had definite opinions: A short upper lip and straight features were her criteria. She had no time for the
jolie laide
or for standards of beauty valued by other cultures. Nor was she among those who valued simple faith over Norman blood. Family backgrounds were also judged by her rigid standards; a tide was an asset, more so if it were an old one. She considered a good family to be one who had lived in the same house for four or more generations. The house did not need to be architecturally distinguished, but a certain amount of land was a requirement. What she admired, I suppose, was the landed gentry. Money was not a factor she took into consideration. Unless it had been too recently acquired.

Unimaginable—and, in reality, unlikely—benefits seemed implicit if Grandmother were to develop the habit of evening strolls during which she might solicit my advice on small decisions to be made at Ballydavid. I came downstairs with a few words already prepared on O'Neill's disregard for my safety during my riding lessons, and on Patience's shortcomings as a suitably obedient mount.

We did not, to my surprise, set off down the avenue but instead turned to the left when we came out the front door. Jock raised himself indifferently from where he lay on the porch and followed us. The graveled area in front of the house extended about twenty yards to a narrow strip of lawn and the edge of the Ballydavid woods. To our left, a flat, beaten-earth track led to the stables and the farmyard beyond, and, for a little time after we entered the woods, I could hear cows lowing and the clucking and crowing of barnyard fowl.

The path was wide enough for me to walk beside Grandmother. Although the sun was setting, the sky would be light for some time, and the woods were gloomy but not dark. I did not speak, partly because I knew Grandmother felt children should not speak until spoken to and partly because I thought there might be something special she wanted to talk about.

For a long time she did not say anything, but paused occasionally to drag at ropes of ivy that were strangling trees close to the path. We came out of the woods and found ourselves at the edge of a steeply sloping field. There was a view over the top of the trees below us of the estuary of the Suir. A narrow path on the outside of the fence had been beaten down by the feet of workmen and anyone else approaching Ballydavid over the fields. I had not known of its existence and had thought that the path Jock and I had taken when I visited the Coughlans was the only shortcut used by the household staff and men who worked on the farm.

The path was narrow and Grandmother walked quickly; my bare legs were scratched—leaving white marks on my dry skin—by the stubble of the weeds and grasses that I trotted through to keep up with her.

“A fine old beech,” Grandmother said, indicating a tree a little larger than the one beside the tennis court and not to my eye remarkable. “See how light the leaves are. Soon you will find beechnuts under it.”

I regarded the tree without expression and glanced up at her to see if a response was required. I decided that it probably wasn't and instead nodded and tried to look as though I understood why she was telling me this.

“This oak is the oldest tree at Ballydavid,” she said, pointing to another tree, when we had walked down the length of the field. “It is more than two hundred years old. They can live for longer than that. After the first frost there will be acorns.”

This time my interest was not entirely simulated. Acorns suggested squirrels—small, reddish brown, and seen rarely enough to be remarked upon. An English king had hidden from his pursuing enemies in an oak tree. I remembered the story which had been read at the little school that I attended—had attended—in London, although not well enough to remember which king. I had been relieved that he had not been caught. I assumed—with an almost complete ignorance of geography, botany, or probability—that the tree from which Absalom had been fatally suspended by his hair was also an oak.

At the bottom of the hill, a loosely constructed arrangement of stones allowed a small stream, at this time of the year no more than a wide strip of darker colored grasses growing out of wet black soil, to run under the path, which was about to end in the wider one that we were now approaching. As we crossed this crude bridge, I became aware of an unpleasant smell. The stream was most likely fed in part by the stable yard drains.

Grandmother spat. I was astonished. And deeply shocked. Spitting, until that moment, was an activity confined to poor; disgusting old men—not only a revolting habit but one associated with disease. Tuberculosis was not unusual in those days; it was incurable and usually fatal.

“Always spit when you pass a bad smell,” Grandmother said. “Germs.”

For some moments I imagined the dramatic effect to which I could put this newly authorized activity when I returned to London.

The path we were now taking was wider than the one we had left and seemed older, although that may merely have been because it was better defined, the shade of the trees—we had reentered the woods—inhibiting the growth of encroaching vegetation. We passed an overgrown clump of pampas grass, and then another; we were on the Fox's Walk.

“I used to come to Ballydavid for parties when I was a child,” Grandmother said, breaking a silence of several minutes.

I looked up at her with unfeigned interest and equally genuine apprehension, certain that there had been no teasing of cats or fugitives under the table at the parties she had attended. I had thought that Aunt Katie, for everyone's sake, would have kept some details of the party from Grandmother. The offcial position at breakfast that morning had seemed to be that the party had been a great success and all three guests appropriately cognizant of the honor bestowed by an invitation to Ballydavid. I thought of Jarvis and tried not to smile. But when I looked up, Grandmother was smiling, too.

“It was where I first met your grandfather,” she said. “My mother—your great-grandmother—brought me. Grandfather was, of course, too grown up for a children's party; but it was the‹ that we first met.”

For one wild moment I thought she might be inviting a confidence, or telling me that my birthday party had been the first step toward finding me a suitable husband. I wondered whether Grandmother could really be the one in whom I would confide my affectionate admiration for Jarvis de Courcy.

“These woods must never be cut,” she continued in what seemed to me a non sequitur but probably wasn't. “If necessary, grazing can be let, but we don't sell land.”

I nodded solemnly.

“When my ship comes home,” Grandmother said, “I would like———”

We were walking very quietly—the path tramped-down earth and dark moss—and we saw the youths some time before they saw us. The two boys were standing, talking, where the yew alley was intersected by the path that led steeply down to the stile over the boundary wall to the Woodstown road. When we were close enough to see their faces, one glanced in our direction and muttered something to his companion. Without acknowledging us, they moved quickly down the path and disappeared into the overgrown shrubs and brambles.

I was surprised. Most of the families that lived in the neighborhood not only would have recognized Grandmother but also would have known that they would be welcome to take a short cut over her fields or through her woods. There would usually have been a raised cap and greeting; country people in those days had exquisite manners. I looked up at Grandmother, but she did not say anything.

“Were they poachers?” I asked hopefully, the possibility of local criminal activity an interesting one. My question was not only based on wishful thinking; Bridie had told me that it was the red-haired boy—I had not, despite judicious loitering in the kitchen yard, seen him again—who sometimes during the winter months brought pheasant and other game, perhaps dubiously acquired, to the back door. My question was, in part, intended to lead the conversation in his direction.

“I don't think so, Alice,” Grandmother said, her voice low and steady—thoughtful, rather than surprised by my question.

I barely had time to register that my line of enquiry had been stifled before the boy himself came running lightly down the track from the direction of the farm. He paused on the wider, more defined, path, looking around for his companions. When he saw Grandmother, he raised his cap.

“Good evening, your ladyship,” he said, and glanced at me. I thought his expression amused and slightly admiring. I was, I suppose, a fairly pretty child, my appearance enhanced by the veneer of privilege.

“Good evening,” Grandmother said, her nod familiar and gracious.

The boy crossed our path—he was still a little distance ahead—at a pace not much faster than ours, but, when he reached the stony track on the other side leading down toward the stile, he seemed to bound, his gait varying with the rough ground beneath him as he disappeared after his friends.

I glanced at Grandmother.

“He's one of the Clancys,” she said. “His family works for Mr. Rowe.”

I now knew half of my hero's name and that he lived on the Rowe farm. I couldn't tell if he was young enough still to be at school or over fourteen, in which case he, like his father, would have been a farm laborer. But I was sure that, whatever the source of the game he purveyed, it wasn't poached from Nicholas Rowe.

“His brother is in the army—the same regiment as Tom O'Neill. He comes up to see Mrs. O'Neill whenever he has a letter,” Grandmother said. After a moment, she added, “Or, I suppose, if he hasn't had a letter, to see if she has any news.”

We continued in silence along the path. Grandmother's expression was thoughtful, and she did not speak until we reached the avenue and turned toward the house.

 

THE FIRST OF
November—All Souls' Day—was warm, golden, autumnal. A touch of crispness in the air during the past two weeks had filled me with energy, and I got out of bed each morning with the same enthusiasm I noticed in the animals at Ballydavid. Patience and Benedict, my mother's old hunter, in the evenings no longer loitered at the far end of their field but waited at the gate for O'Neill to take them in, looking forward to a sheltered stable and a scoop of oats disproportionate to the probable calls on their energy. Even Jock was alert, as though waiting for a man with a gun over his arm and a game bag on his shoulder to follow to the marshy fields and desolate bogs beside the river.

I had started lessons with Clodagh the week after my birthday. Our schoolroom hours were shorter than those I had been used to and included such pleasant diversions as nature walks and bathing during the first warm afternoons. But the conventions of term time and holiday were the same as those observed by real schools. Clodagh and I were much of an age; her initial claim to seniority disappeared when it became apparent that my education was somewhat further advanced than hers. She wasn't stupid but she lacked imagination, and already her mind was locked into the narrow conventions and beliefs held by her mother. And I had the advantage of having spent two years at a proper London school—the one she had unwisely dismissed as “kindergarten.”

I came down to breakfast that morning silently spelling some of the words we had been set for homework—“choir,” “perceived,” “catastrophic”—and making a list of words whose roots came from the Greek. Grandmother already sat at the head of the table; Aunt Katie was still upstairs.

“Today you and I will go to the Abbey and Slieverue.”

I opened my mouth to say that I was supposed to go to Glenbeg for my lessons and then shut it again without speaking. I had learned during the past months not to question Grandmother's decisions; I was now trying to teach myself not to ask her any questions at all.

“I sent a note to Miss Kingsley.”

The previous day I had been given a letter to deliver to my governess; it still lay at the bottom of my school satchel. To admit this to Grandmother would be proper, honorable, and unimaginable. My mind raced as I nodded obediently. Tomorrow I would throw myself on Miss Kingsley's easier to imagine mercy, and, I decided with deceit born of fear, if by some chance Grandmother found out that my absence had been unanticipated, I would pretend that I had not associated the envelope in my satchel with this announcement of my absence. I kept my face expressionless and waited for my stomach to unclench.