The Fox's Walk (6 page)

“He's speaking Welsh,” my mother said. “I don't think he speaks English.”

This was even more interesting than I had imagined. It was my first exposure to a foreign language. And my mother seemed more open to conversation than she sometimes was.

“Of course,” she added hastily in a low voice, “he may understand it.”

I studied the man's face. I did not have the impression that he comprehended my mother's words, but I could tell that his lack of reaction might be a result of his condition—I understood the principle of intoxication, although not to the extent of being able to recognize it; but in this case the brown bottle was a clue—rather than an ignorance of the English language. As I watched, his eyes began to close; they half-opened once or twice, and then he sank into an uncomfortable sleep.

I was free now to study our traveling companion. Before I did so, I glanced toward my mother. She smiled a half-hearted, reassuring smile and put her finger to her lips. I understood that she hoped the man would continue to sleep, at least until the conductor came. He was dressed in dirty clothes, but I could see that his clothing and the grime on his hands and face were the consequence of work, not of vagrancy.

We continued silently on for a long time. Edward slept; I stared at the unconscious man; my mother sat up straight with a benevolent expression, her demeanor confirming that she was a pillar of respectable society. From time to time, the whistle blew; the train left the blackness of the open, raining night and passed under hills though dry, dark tunnels. I began to feel the need to visit the WC at the end of the corridor, but I said nothing.

We passed though a dimly lit small station without stopping, and as the train slowed down to follow a curve of the tracks, the empty brown beer bottle toppled over and rolled across the carriage and under my seat. The man sat bolt upright, said something in his mysterious language, smiled apologetically at my mother, and patted her reassuringly on her knee.

I was already adept at pretending not to notice awkward moments or inconvenient facts. Partly because I gathered that was how one was supposed to behave, and partly because the less I seemed to notice or understand the more likely I was to be in a position where I could watch interesting things happen and gather necessary information. Nevertheless, my mouth opened in astonished disbelief at this extraordinary liberty, and I felt, for the first time, a twinge of fear. It was not often that the conventions of society did not work, and if they didn't, it meant that other rules—the kind that guaranteed safety—also might not hold true.

My mother, without relinquishing her protective ladylike posture, shrank as far as she could into the ungiving upholstery of the Great Western seat. Our traveling companion patted her knee again. I looked at his hand, its ingrained dirt, the black under and around his fingernails, the grimy, frayed cuffs of his shirt; despite his unnerving behavior, I still had the impression that he was a laborer and that his appearance was not a result of an intrinsic lack of cleanliness. The man also regarded his hand, resting on the lavender gray of my mother's spring coat. My mother, dignified and frightened, looked above my head, seeing nothing.

After a moment, the man lifted his hand and looked at it with a puzzled expression. Then he turned to look at my mother. At first it seemed as though he were about to apologize; then his expression changed and he began to smile. I thought, and I am sure my mother thought, that he was about to kiss her. We both froze, holding our breath, my mother, I am sure, as frightened as I was. The man sighed, his eyes began to close, and he once again fell asleep. This time with his head on my mothers shoulder.

“It's all right, Alice. He's harmless.” Mother didn't speak again until we reached the next station. As the train drew into the noisy, brightly lit platform, the man woke up and, without a glance at any of us, stood up and left the carriage. I looked out the window and saw him make his way slowly across the platform, through a gate, and out into the darkness.

I slept for most of what remained of our journey. When I awoke briefly, Mother was sitting as upright as she had been before. On her face was an expression I had never seen. Angry, resentful, and determined.

 

O'NEILL WAS WAITING
for us on the Quay at Waterford. The warm, sunny day with a mild fresh breeze seemed to begin when we reached the dock. Tired, dirty, pale, we walked down the gangplank into paradise.

The crossing had not been particularly rough. But it had been unpleasant—particularly for my mother who, seasick herself, had had to look after an overtired infant. Even though I had tried not to be any trouble, I had, to my shame, vomited on the cabin floor. During the night, I had woken and heard my mother weeping quietly and, I thought, angrily. After the boat had turned into the early morning calm of the river, strong tea had been served. Our fellow passengers availed themselves of its dark reviving powers. My mother added some more milk to hers and told me to sip it. My stomach, still tender, revolted against the strong pale liquid, and I retched; to this day the idea of stewed milky tea in a thick white cup revolts me.

O'Neill welcomed my mother as though she were a returning princess. He seemed impressed by how I had grown and pronounced the pale and grizzling Edward “a fine looking lad.” O'Neill worshipped my mother. She had a good seat on a horse; and, on the rare occasions that she now enjoyed a day's foxhunting, the overconditioned hunter still kept at Ballydavid was shown to O'Neill's credit.

Patience, the pony that pulled the trap, was for me one of the great attractions of Ballydavid. I hoped to be allowed to ride this summer and I sometimes pretended that Patience was my pony. O'Neill found our luggage, loaded it into the trap, and we were on our way. There was a smell of salt in the air; noisy seagulls circled overhead, and pigeons, sidestepping horses' hooves, pecked at spilled grain between the cobblestones.

Ballydavid was six miles from Waterford; in cold or wet weather it seemed a long journey, but on a sunny morning like this it was only pleasure. Color came back into my mother's face as she questioned O'Neill about people and places and asked after his family—his son Tom was fighting in France—and about my grandmother and great-aunt.

It seemed to me—a minority view, I was aware—there was more of interest to look at in Waterford than in London. Soon we left the wide streets around the river and the Mall and drove past small gardens with monkey puzzles and the large stone gates of a school where I could see a games field; chestnut trees held large pink and white candles, and a cherry tree in pale bloom stood inside the gates of another large house set back from the road and partially obscured by trees. We passed children and dogs, and a middle-aged woman in a mackintosh, to whom Mother waved, walking two sleek greyhounds. Leaving the town behind us, we descended the steep hill, from which we could again see the river and the island in the wider part of it, home to a Hassard whom my great-aunt had once referred to as “Bluebeard.” I watched for the carved milestones on the side of the road, half-concealed by weeds, an unspecified superstitious advantage to be gained by seeing all six.

Then we drove up the avenue and saw Ballydavid in all its spring glory. The house was no more than a good Regency villa, but I thought it the most beautiful place in the world. That morning the sun on its ivy-covered walls, the spring grass, and the trees in new leaf made it seem magical.

Grandmother and Aunt Katie were waiting to welcome us. They stood in the shade of the veranda, tall and straight, the skirts of their dresses—Grandmother's black, Aunt Katie's a dark brown—touching the gray flagstones. They were both widows, and had been for some time, Aunt Katie for longer than Grandmother. Both seemed immeasurably old, but, looking back, I now realize that Grandmother, the elder by a year or two, was probably only in her late fifties.

I looked at the two old ladies and felt admiration, respect, a little fear, and certainty that there was no limit to their power, their authority, or their ability to make safe those within their keeping. Without glancing at my mother, I knew she felt the same way.

Oonagh, Grandmother's tigerish cat, and Jock, the Highland collie, were waiting with them; Jock, enthusiastic and playful, rushed out to jump up at us while Oonagh, tail in the air, paraded back and forth, stroking herself on the skirt of Grandmother's dress. Bridie, the housemaid, stood behind them, alerted to our arrival by one of the men, or perhaps she had been watching from an upstairs window. When we got out of the trap and were embraced by Grandmother and Aunt Katie, Bridie, smiling, stepped forward to help O'Neill with our luggage. Protocol dictated that her welcome should take place a little later. For me, it might be that afternoon when I crept into the kitchen or when she gave me my bath before I went to bed. My mother and she would exchange a few affectionate words when next they found themselves alone, perhaps when Bridie carried up a jug of hot water to my mother's room. Mother would ask after Bridie's family and accept her congratulations on how big and strong Edward and I were becoming.

After I had washed and changed my clothes, I found that I was ravenously hungry. Mother and I sat down to a late breakfast and Bridie swept Edward away to the kitchen. My mother and the two old ladies remained at the table; I was sent up to bed. I protested that I wasn't tired, but minutes later, lying between the cool sheets in the saggy comfort of the old bed, with a feeling of utter, complete, and all-surrounding well-being, I fell deeply and blissfully asleep.

From time to time I woke up, once to find Bridie sitting on my bed, stroking my hair back from my forehead. She had brought my lunch up on a tray. I ate it gratefully and went straight back to sleep. When I next woke, the color of the light told me it was late afternoon. I lay still, lazy and happy. I wondered if Bridie would bring my tea. The feel of the old linen sheets, a down-filled pillow, and a horsehair mattress kept me in bed, although I was thinking of the pleasures that awaited me downstairs and, even more, out-of-doors. A cool breeze from the open window touched my face; it smelled of spring rain and the freshly opened buds green on the trees outside.

My dreamy laziness was interrupted by a crunch of feet on gravel. The crunch became footsteps followed by the scrape of a chair leg on stone. Whoever was below—two people—had stepped onto the veranda and sat down on the old wicker chairs below my window. I was surprised that I could hear them so clearly. It seemed likely that the footsteps were my mother's and those of one of the old ladies.

After a moment I could hear the murmur of voices, although not clearly enough to hear what they were saying. Then something in my mother's voice—I still could not tell which of the old ladies was sitting with her—caused me to listen more intently. It seemed to me I could hear a tightness in her tone that suggested she was worried, and it sounded as though she were asking a question.

If my mother had questions, I wanted to hear the answers. I climbed quietly out of bed and crossed the room to the open window.

“What will happen?” My mother asked.

“We don't know.” The other voice belonged to Aunt Katie.

A wicker chair below creaked.

“But Redmond is sound?” My mother seemed to want to be reassured.

There was a pause before my great-aunt replied.

“Yes. He's behaving well and bravely. But both sides have guns. How long can it be before they use them?

There was another silence, broken only by one of them sighing, and after a little while the chairs creaked again as they rose and went indoors.

From the window one could see the river estuary, a calm tidal body of water, and beyond it, in the distance, the Adantic. As I leaned on the windowsill, in the fading early evening light, I could hear the cry of a curlew. A flight of mallards came in low over the trees, on their way to one of the many small ponds that lay below us in the marshy ground close to the estuary. I could hear the companionable evening sounds they seemed to make to one another as they passed overhead.

 

AS THE LONG DROWSY
summer began, I was aware of drama and tension in the air and, to some extent, I knew where it came from. There were four sources: the war, the unresolved future of Ireland, a quarrel between my mother and father, and the day-today pitfalls of living in my grandmothers house.

The war affected me less than did the other three. Every day the
Morning Post
arrived, a day late, from England. It was eagerly and anxiously read and then discussed by my mother and the old ladies. Occasionally, perhaps once a week, a letter would come from my uncle Sainthill serving in France. It seemed as though time stopped while Grandmother opened the letter and read it. Mother and Aunt Katie watched her closely, trying to deduce its contents from her expression. When she had finished reading her son's letter, Grandmother would hand it to Aunt Katie and she, in turn, would read it and then pass it to my mother. Every fact, nuance, and inference of the letter would be discussed then and for the rest of the day.

I understood that the unstable political situation in Ireland was the subject of the conversation that had floated up from the veranda to my bedroom the afternoon of the day we'd arrived in Ireland. Redmond, I knew, was the leader of the Irish parliamentary party. He had succeeded Parnell, whose glorious political career and, with it, the prospect of Irish Home Rule, had disappeared when he was cited in a divorce case. Redmond was popular with the Anglo-Irish because although he supported Home Rule—the question of Home Rule for Ireland having been shelved for the duration of the war—he also supported Irish involvement in the war. At the beginning of hostilities he had suggested that the defense of Ireland should be left to the Volunteers (those of the North and South, both now illegally armed the first by the rifles landed at Larne, the second by the shipment brought into Howth by Erskine Childers in the
Asgard
) in order to leave the English soldiers stationed in Ireland free to fight. The offer had been declined—an insult similar to Kitchener's resistance to forming specifically southern Irish regiments—and whole regiments of English soldiers, who, had the offer been accepted, would have been sent to the front, instead spent tours of duty safely and comfortably in Ireland. Young officers, instead of going to France, spent a season in Irish society, shooting and hunting in winter, attending race meetings in summer—a welcome resource for hostesses with unmarried daughters of a dancing age.