The Fox's Walk (22 page)

I, too, was in the library, but there was no question of my role being greater than that of audience. Although the day was cold, the windows were open—a short-lived fresh air fad had further reduced the chilly temperature in which we lived—and I could smell the salt in a damp wind off the sea. I huddled in a corner of the sofa with a book on my knees and watched a small bird in the ivy outside the window, its body in constant motion as it cocked its head from side to side and pecked at something unseen—berries, insects—under the new green leaves.

The invitation was ostensibly to come from Aunt Katie. It was in the nature of a last resort. Although either or both the old ladies had attended each meet of the local hounds (I had turned out to be more useful than they could have imagined), we had never again chanced on the Countess.

“Dear Countess,” Grandmother read aloud. There had been some discussion of the appellation. Words unknown to me such as
soi-disant
had been doubtfully murmured, and it was only when Aunt Katie had said, reassuringly, “just a Polish countess, after all,” that the letter passed the stage of salutation and preliminary compliments to come to the point. It was an invitation to tea surrounded by coded hints, each requiring much thought—most of it aloud—by my grandmother. “Such a pleasure meeting you at Ballinamona Park.” “If you have time on your hands while Mrs. Hitchcock is hunting———” (There was much discussion on this hint, since it was impossible Aunt Katie should not know the hunting season had been over for some time.) “O'Neill, of course, could fetch you and take you home.” All were included in the final draft. The end result, Grandmother and Aunt Katie hoped, was an invitation based on adequate acquaintanceship and firmly excluding any suggestion that Mrs. Hitchcock should accompany her. Both the old ladies feared, nevertheless, that because of the Countess's inexact grasp—through no fault of her own, they hastened to add—of the English language and Mrs. Hitchcock's coarseness, ignorance, and probable lack of attention to the conventions of Anglo-Irish social life, that the hint that Mrs. Hitchcock should not accompany her prot£g£e might not be understood. It seemed to me, silent on the sofa, that they had little to fear from that direction: The American divorcee's wish to spend an afternoon at Ballydavid, drinking nothing stronger than tea with two old ladies, would surely be even slighter than Grandmother's willingness to allow her to cross the doorstep.

At last composed, revised, rewritten, and sealed, the letter was not entrusted to the post, which would have guaranteed delivery at breakfast the following morning, but sent with O'Neill in the Sunbeam on the next occasion Mrs. Hitchcock could be counted on not to be at home.

An anxious couple of days followed, during which the Countess was not mentioned by either Grandmother or Aunt Katie, before a letter arranging a day for the visit came in the post. They had, I imagine, expected O'Neill to bring an answer back with him. I could see that the Countess's letter strained Grandmother's fastidious taste to its fullest extent. Aunt Katie muttered “Polish” and “things done difierently there” several times as they read the untidy handwriting on pink writing paper.

“They write with little pictures in Manchuria,” I said helpfully, not quite sure of my facts but having seen examples of beautiful Chinese brush-and-ink characters in my schoolbooks.

Both the old ladies looked at me with some gratitude for a possible excuse for the Countess's vulgar missive. I had not seen the letter in question and thought they were having difficulty reading it because it was not in English. Pleased with my success, I forgot a basic maxim of childhood—that a cheerful, uncomprehending silence is the best and safest demeanour.

“Mrs. Coughlan might be able to read it,” I continued helpfully.

“I dare say,” Grandmother said icily, making it clear that, while Mrs. Coughlan might indeed be more acquainted than they were with vulgar writing paper and ill-educated writing, she would not be the one to whom they would go for assistance.

I thought their reaction rather unfair. I had taken some trouble to find out exactly where Manchuria was and could see that it was convenient to both Russia and China. The Chinese purse that Mrs. Coughlan had given me (I believed that she had bought it herself in Singapore, and it is possible that she had), let alone her familiarity with Cairo, almost halfway to Manchuria, should surely have made her the person to consult.

There was a large globe in the schoolroom at Glenbeg. I had asked Miss Kingsley about Manchuria and she had told me to find it on the globe. Miss Kingsley taught us most of what we learned by referring us to standard reference sources; she rarely imparted information of her own. At the time it seemed to me a valid if rather irritating approach to education, but I now realize that most likely she herself had received no more than cursory schooling. I had been happy enough to study the globe, since I also wanted to see how close Manchuria was to Russia and the Balkans.

The day the Countess came to tea, Bridie put out on my bed the smocked wool dress I wore on special occasions. I was pleased with how smart it looked and how nice it was to have had new winter and summer frocks since I had come to Ballydavid, and I didn't think how similar my role was at this tea party to the one I played when, the previous year in London, Mara used to come to visit my mother. My presence providing an illusionary protection for my family against an unknown foreign quantity and, at the same time, making them guiltily aware that I was being exposed to unsuitable information and a possibly corrupting influence. Suspecting that this tea party was an occasion on which I might soon be excused, I also was interested in the iced walnut cake I had seen on the tea tray in the kitchen, and hoped I would last in the drawing room at least until it was served.

For a moment it seemed as though I might not even achieve the drawing room, let alone tea. I had been loitering in the hall, watching through a window for O'Neill to drive up the avenue. Running into the drawing room, I announced the Countess's imminent arrival to Grandmother and Aunt Katie, but neither of the old ladies rose until they heard the Sunbeam draw up at the front door. When they went into the hall to greet their guest rather than let Bridie announce her arrival, I followed and waited in the gloom by the stairs—officially present but, although curious, shy and unwilling to be involved in any of the possible misunderstandings or embarrassments of the first few moments of the Countess's visit. I was still more reluctant to be the cause of an awkwardness.

The first surprise—shock—was that, after O'Neill had opened the door of the Sunbeam for the Countess, he had gone around to the boot of the motorcar and, opening it, taken out two battered suitcases and several untidily wrapped packages. I watched the old ladies' eyes flicker toward the baggage he was unloading and saw them decide not to comment. Instead they greeted the Countess and led her back into the drawing room. Lagging behind, I caught O'Neill's eye, his lack of expression telling. I watched him set what might well have been the Countess's entire worldly possessions as neatly as he could just inside the hall door and go back to the Sunbeam. I wondered if he would put the motorcar into the garage, assuming it would not be further needed that afternoon, or whether he would wait and see; I was quite sure, though, that he would alert Bridie to the luggage in the hall and that there would be a discussion of what the proper procedure would be for the apparent arrival of an uninvited guest and no instructions from Grandmother. I, wide-eyed, followed Aunt Katie into the drawing room and reluctantly closed the door on the only slightly less interesting scene developing behind me.

Any hope Grandmother and Aunt Katie might have had that this tea party would proceed along conventional lines—at least to start with, their ultimate goal being not so conventional—was shattered before Grandmother had a chance to invite their guest to sit down. The Countess just managed to contain herself until the door was closed before drawing a deep breath and pouring out a garbled story of scandal and outrage. It was, at first, difficult to understand, although the luggage in the hall served as a pretty substantial clue.

Gaping at the Countess, I was nonetheless aware that Aunt Katie did not want me to witness any more of this scene. I studiously avoided her eye and remained by the door—I hadn't bothered to sit, knowing I would not be present for long—until the Countess paused for breath. I hadn't understood what she was talking about, although certain repeated words and phrases—“guns,” “men with guns,” “Mrs. Hitchcock,” and “house on fire”—would allow me to piece together a possible scenario when I had time to think about it.

“Alice, dear, please tell Bridie to bring tea in———” Aunt Katie paused, trying to weigh the reviving qualities of tea against the likelihood of Bridie's witnessing such a scene and of the ensuing gossip, “-in fifteen minutes. And ask her to give you tea in the kitchen.”

I left reluctantly, going out the door into the hall rather than the one to the passage and the kitchen. The Countess's trappings were still by the front door; Bridie and Maggie stood in the open service doorway regarding them with interest. I delivered my message and together we went into the kitchen.

“Aunt Katie said to be sure to give me a slice of cake with my tea,” I said, reasonably sure that a slice out of the cake would not, in the current drawing room atmosphere, be remarked upon.

When I went to say good night to Grandmother and Aunt Katie, they told me that the Countess would be staying for a few days, since Mrs. Hitchcock had left for Dublin and the race meeting at Fairyhouse.

 

IT SEEMED FOR
the next day and a half that no one would tell me the full story of what had happened at Mrs. Hitchcock's house. I gathered that armed revolutionaries had come looking for guns and had threatened to burn her house down. Most country houses at that time would have had a sporting gun or two on the premises, although, as far as I knew, Mrs. Hitchcock didn't shoot. I listened carefully in the drawing room and gathered only that censorship was more than usually in place. Even in the kitchen, where the Countess's character was freely discussed—not always entirely to her credit—I was sure I was not hearing everything.

While I was trying to puzzle out what had happened at Mrs. Hitchcock's house, a new set of rumors, these about Sir Roger Casement's arrival in Ireland and his subsequent arrest, began to circulate. Wild, often inaccurate, and telling of ignoble acts: Casement had been accompanied to the Irish coast by a German ship flying a neutral flag; under arrest, he had offered to inform on his companions in return for his life.

At about the same time that the Casement stories joined the colorful speculations about what had taken place at Mrs. Hitchcock's house, I heard Nicholas Rowe mentioned twice; on neither occasion could I fit him into the account of the Countess's quarrel with Mrs. Hitchcock or connect him to Casement's arrival and arrest. The second association seemed the more likely, since I had heard that Nicholas Rowe was the local head of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. But an awkwardness that accompanied mention of his name led me to suspect there was a third drama or scandal of which I knew nothing.

It was Sonia, as I was by then calling the Countess, who, when we first found ourselves alone, filled in the details of her last night at Mrs. Hitchcock's house. I was at the time flattered that she should trust me to such an extent, although it now occurs to me that she may have been less than discriminate in her audiences. Even so, there were nuances and inferences I didn't catch until later, one of which was the state of play between Mrs. Hitchcock and the Countess the night before the former went up to Dublin and the latter sought sanctuary at Ballydavid.

It seems relations were already strained between my new heroine and her former hostess. The Countess had failed to divert Mrs. Hitchcock for more than a couple of weeks, and the older woman, discontented, now wanted more dramatic results or a new plaything. The Countess had thought herself rescued, no longer in the precarious position of a refugee increasingly worn down by living on her charm and ability to amuse. It is also possible that, although temporary male protectors may have made more explicit demands on her, they were easier to manipulate. As I was later to realize, men saw her more clearly than women did, but tended to be amused rather than distressed by her shortcomings.

It seems that Sonia had retired very soon after supper on the night in question, the atmosphere perhaps cool enough for her to have eaten her supper on a tray in her room. Mrs. Hitchcock was entertaining several men with whom she had been to a race meeting at Clonmel and the atmosphere was noisy, with a fair amount of drink consumed. The Countess liked a small brandy from time to time as a restorative, but I have the impression that she did not regard alcohol as a social aid.

Sonia had been asleep for some time when the sound of male voices from below awakened her. She didn't know how late it was, but outside it was pitch dark. She didn't get out of bed or light a candle, assuming the noise came from Mrs. Hitchcocks guests, some conceivably from Mrs. Hitchcock herself.

After a little while, the sounds becoming louder and more clearly not celebratory, Sonia wrapped herself in a shawl and crossed the dark room to the window. Some of the voices seemed to come from outside. Slipping between the curtain and the window, she looked through the glass and listened. Standing in front of the house were five young men. Two of them carried rifles, and the others had put down on the gravel objects she could not immediately identify. Sonia could not understand what they were saying, the heavy local accents unintelligible to her, but she could see they were shouting up to someone above them. Pressing her cheek against the cold pane and looking sideways, she managed to sec—the front of the house a gentle bay—her hostess, in a dressing gown and with a shawl wrapped about her, leaning out her bedroom window.