Tipperary (28 page)

The matter had proceeded as follows: Charles journeyed to the west of England in June 1904. And Miss Burke wrote to Amelia O'Brien six or seven weeks later. In that period she evidently decided—which she had not done since November 1900—that Tipperary Castle and its estate warranted a look serious enough to make a visit; and to spend a potentially embarrassing time in the family home of a man to whom she had at best been dismissive.

All the impressions of her at this stage suggest a young woman who never did anything spontaneously. Amelia O'Brien discusses her in strong terms—“conniving” and “icy” and, almost expletively from such a woman, “cunning.” Depending on only the O'Brien observations, we can therefore assume that April Burke knew what she was doing when she decided to travel to Ireland.

In her terms she was going to darkest Africa. She had grown up with daily reports of murders and other outrages out of Ireland. In London her only contact with the Irish would have been at the servant level, with beggars in the streets, or perhaps with an occasional Irish lord or lady.

It's perfectly feasible that until she met Oscar Wilde she had never encountered a cultivated Irishman. She failed to see past Charles's rather careless facade to the honest and earnest man beneath—who was now about to show her a magnificent possibility. Have two people ever had such different intentions on a Sunday morning outing?

I did not sleep that night. She lay mere yards away from my room, along the west corridor of our house. The moon rose late, and I sat at the window looking out at the garden and the wood. With foreknowledge of the boards that creak, I stepped out and walked to her door. For a long moment I stood there and my mind reared under many lashes; I pressed both hands to my face, seeking composure.

The catch on that lock has some indifference to it, and I knew she would not be certain that she had closed her door. I pushed gently, and the door opened back. From inside I could hear deep breathing and almost a hint of snoring; and from the room in general came a faint and sweet perfume that I shall ever associate with her.

I stepped into the doorway; she had drawn all curtains tightly closed—no moonbeam would gain that room. Along with the perfume I caught the smell of the candle that she had recently doused. From the moonlight of the corridor I could see that the newspaper I had left for her to read (with my disquisition on Mr. Griffith) had a valise sitting upon it. No doubt she intended to read it upon the morning.

Then I caught my breath. Here I stood, a man in a lady's room without her invitation or permission! I retreated immediately, ashamed that I should have advanced so far. As I closed the door tenderly, I knew that she had not stirred, and therefore my little visit had passed unobserved.

April rode well. We gave her Nonie, a nine-year-old mare who had thrown one foal and was therefore inclined to be placid. As I watched the horses being readied in the yard, Father appeared. Mother walked with him and they had deep conversation, both looking at the ground; I doubt not that they discussed this remarkable young woman and her suitability for their son. When they saw me, Mother waved a warm hand, said something to my father, and returned to the house; she fills her life with work. Father came over and asked how prepared were the horses. When he discovered that some minutes remained before both should be watered and saddled, he said, “I want to look at something in the garden.”

Ours is a walled garden, of warm red brick; few places that I have known give such secluded peace. There is a ruined abbey chancel in County Longford where the sun on a winter's day may be as hot as summer, so warm are the walls, so secure the shelter. In south Galway, I know of a graveyard where the western wall of an old family vault has a kind of pocket in it, which keeps out all wind, and when the sun beams directly into that spot, it becomes a Mediterranean place. Of Glengariff, nothing need be said other than it grows tropical palms.

Likewise Ardobreen's walled garden, which runs down to the little Multeen River, and that morning the warmth of the Indian summer had accumulated and heated the old red walls.

“I have been trying to grow globe artichokes,” said my father, and I followed him to a patch half-covered with panes of glass resting upon some stakes.

He picked a sphere off the matured plant and caressed it; Father breathes slowly through his nose when he is contemplating, as he did now.

“Now, why did I grow these rough old green things?” he mused. “Maybe I just wanted the feel of a baby's head about the place,” he said. “Maybe I just wanted to remember what you were like as a little baby. Boys-oh-dear, and how I would have done anything in the world to keep harm from falling on that little head.”

He handed me the globe artichoke. “Feel that.”

I ran my hands over the leaves and marveled that he had achieved a crop; we get much rain and unsteady temperatures.

“You know, 'tisn't often we grow things we want to protect,” he said. “And look at this thing. I grew it to eat it. I suppose someone's always around to eat what you grow. Whether you want to protect them or no.”

His voice cracked a little, and I looked and saw that he had tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. It was my instinct to say that he felt too much moved by a vegetable; therefore I said nothing.

“Ride slowly today,” he said. “Stay on the level, don't bother jumping any fences; she's not knowledgeable of our Irish ways.”

He stayed in the garden and I returned to the yard, where the horses, pleased with each other's company, were now prancing a little. I mounted faithful Della and led Nonie behind me to the terrace, where already April waited with Mother. Euclid had found a gap of sunshine and lay on a chaise, the early beams falling across his face. He waved us off.

Of all the days in the week, Sunday is the most tranquil in that countryside. Their ride can be traced. From the front of the house, they rode to the top of the avenue, which then slopes sharply down. Captain Ferguson's exotic wood stands to the west, open paddocks and pastures to the east. The slope lasts about two hundred yards, and at the bottom a white gate now stretches across the property. Inside the hedge to their right, they would have found a well lined with pewter-colored stone, and brimming with water.

Then they began a gentle climb to the main road—and from here anybody hiding in the trees of the castle could watch them all the way.

As I have stated before, from the lower end of our avenue, we see the peaks of Tipperary Castle and the battlements and the two small square turrets; we see the giant trees, the beeches and oaks, their bushy heads inclining toward the beauty of the house like eager men toward a lady in a salon. At the moment it all came in view April and I were riding alongside; through lack of practice, she had been keeping her eyes on the ground, as do many unaccustomed riders.

“Raise your eyes,” I said. “There is your inheritance.”

We reined in at the same time and gazed at the great house. She looked and looked but said nothing.

“Is it in any way familiar?” I asked.

She waited before answering, then said, “Only in dreams.” I had difficulty making out the words, so softly did she speak. “Nothing prepared me for this,” she said, again in a low voice.

We sat for some time and she looked all around; I believed her utterly pleased at what she saw—and I asked her as much.

“Pleased indeed,” she said, and repeated it. “Pleased indeed.”

“And you have seen but a fraction,” I told her, and we nudged our horses forward.

We trotted along the roadway for about half a mile and then I changed our direction; we passed through an open gate, rode to a wide gap in the long hedges of hawthorn, now thick with hanging knots of gleaming red berries, and began the long sloping ascent to the house. Our view of the estate improved with each yard we took. We splashed across a bright stream.

I said, “You are now on the estate itself. This is where the acreage begins.”

Ahead of us, birds rose screeching from thickets.

“How far does it stretch?” she asked.

“Almost to the mountains.”

I decided that we should climb to the old lawns that sat almost level with the south side of the roof. Nobody had ridden this path for some time, and we forced our way past some brambles and briars. In the distance rose the high walls of the main building; the bright light of the morning made the cut stone seem more tailored than ever.

April looked at everything: the sealed windows and their sleek, pointed architraves; the great door that had resisted so many attacks; the manicured cornices and peaks. We turned our horses up one last, steep path and there we stood, with all to be viewed.

The estate is wider than it is long and stretches mostly south and east.

“Four thousand acres?” She repeated my answer to a question that she had asked. “How shall we find out exactly?”

“The authorities keep a land registry,” I said. “The council in Clonmel or Tipperary town—whose spires you can see off there in the distance.”

With gestures I showed her the extent of the estate, as I believed it to be—south, southeast, and east of where we sat, until we had turned about in our saddles and faced toward Cashel, where I showed her the medieval buildings on the great Rock five miles distant. Her level eyes observed all; her cool manner took in everything; I saw as yet no excited response.

“And you have not seen the prettiest part,” I said.

We rode down from the old lawns to the northern terraces, where grass abounded between and over the wide paving stones. When we had cleared the corner of the building I said, “Now look.”

Beneath us lay the lake and the bridge that crossed the little river. So thoughtful had been the placing of the trees and the shrubberies that the estate's shape had remained firm down through the decades of disuse. At this distance, everything seemed normal—the shrubs had blossomed and the trees still carried a great abundance of leaf, now golden and ocher in the fall of the year. All growth seemed to lean toward the house and protect it, and I pointed out to April how the plantings had been so arranged as to give shelter from the northerly and easterly winds. She made no comment. Instead, she eyed some cattle browsing by the water's edge.