A Marriage of Convenience (12 page)

When the straggling village of Rathkenny came in sight, he was not sorry to concentrate all his attention on his map. After a short distance he left the main track and struck out across the fields to avoid exciting attention. Hardly any of the farms he was now
passing
were larger than five acres; most being split among children who ought to have moved away. The numerous untilled fields testified to the fatal Irish theory that animals ought to grow fat on the pasture provided by nature rather than on winter crops. In
consequence
few farmers were able to keep more than a handful of beasts on their exhausted land.

The Kilkreen estate, as Clinton well appreciated, was a fine example of another Irish vicious circle. Landlords could not afford to drain and bring new land under cultivation unless rents were paid in full, and this in turn would never happen until more acres were farmed. Even if the present rent strike were broken, and Clinton did not believe it would be, others would soon arise unless massive land reclamation were begun. Yet even this would fail without the simultaneous merging of numerous smallholdings into areas large enough to become viable mixed farms. And when that day came, in spite of his efforts to persuade Esmond otherwise, Clinton knew he would never be prepared to bring on his mother the odium of the necessary mass evictions.

After passing a tract of stonier country, Clinton came to a group of cabins nestling by a narrow strip of potato ridges. An overturned cart with one wheel off and some loose sticks and furze stuck into the gaps like a barricade, served as a shared gateway. A few geese were scrabbling about in the muddy front patch among the weeds and thistles, and a large mastiff jerked at his chain and started barking. Clinton tethered his horse and walked up to the central most solidly built cabin, avoiding a manure heap in his path. Rags had been stuffed into broken windowpanes and the roof was patched with turf.

Breathing deeply to steady himself, Clinton knocked loudly with
the bone handle of his riding crop. After a short interval a man wearing a dirty moleskin waistcoat came to a window and asked him what he wanted.

‘To come in.’ replied Clinton.

‘You can’t get in here,’ was the sharp and suspicious reply.

‘You must be Joe McMahon.’

‘What if I am?’

‘You’re the man I want to speak to.’

Evidently taken aback by Clinton’s friendly tone, McMahon eyed him warily for several seconds.

‘And what’d you be after doing then?’

‘I can’t tell you until you let me in.’ The man said nothing; his eyes all the time scanning the track and the hedges for concealed bailiffs. ‘Do you know who I am?’ went on Clinton.

‘If you were the pope himself I’d not give a rap.’

‘So you won’t care that I’m Lord Ardmore.’

‘If it’s yer lordship right enough, you’ll still not come in.’

Clinton shrugged his shoulders.

‘You can’t be McMahon,’ he said dismissively. ‘He wouldn’t be scared of one man on his own. Come out and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.’

‘I’m not a fool entirely.’

‘But you’re a coward for all that.’

With a sudden snort of disgust McMahon slammed the window shut and soon Clinton heard the sound of bolts being withdrawn. The man bowed to him with deference bordering on mockery.

‘Walk in, your honour, walk in.’

McMahon led him into a room furnished with a table, a dresser and a few three-legged stools. In the grate a turf fire was
smouldering
, and behind some hen-coops on the far side of the room next to a stack of oats was a crude wooden bed-frame covered with straw laid across wattles. A young woman with a sallow face stood by the fire, her fingers pulling at the edges of her black shawl; probably in her early twenties, she looked ten years older. Clinton noticed her apprehension and at once guessed that she was far more frightened of what her husband might do than anything a mere stranger might attempt. Though smaller than Clinton, McMahon was thickset with muscles like knotted ropes in his broad forearms. Beneath a lock of straw-coloured hair, his blue eyes were watchful rather than belligerent. Seeing a bill-hook resting against the wall by the window, Clinton placed himself between McMahon and this
weapon
.

‘So you’re the terror of the countryside, McMahon, and nobody dares take you?’

At these words the man made a quick uneasy movement towards the door, as though expecting Clinton to signal to people outside the window.

‘No one will take me,’ he growled.

‘How will it end?’ asked Clinton quietly. ‘You owe two years rent, and now you’re frightening your neighbours out of paying. I’m told you’ve sworn to shoot any process-man who tries to serve a writ.’

McMahon unexpectedly grinned and went over to a great-coat hanging on a nail by the dresser; turning the coat a little, he exposed the large brass-mounted handle of a horse-pistol. Clinton, whose right hand was already in his pocket, cocked his revolver the moment McMahon touched the pistol. McMahon heard the click and threw down his gun with a harsh laugh. Clinton looked down and saw that the Irishman’s weapon had neither lock nor barrel.

‘Your honour has a fine set of bailiffs to be afraid of that,’ McMahon said scornfully.

When Clinton laughed, the woman smiled with relief and seemed more at ease. Though amused by the thought of the terror this broken gun had inspired, Clinton was also saddened. The reality of this isolated man holding out against the bailiffs was very different from the picture painted by Wright. But perhaps there were other firearms hidden in the house. After a pause Clinton said: ‘I’m going to have to make you pay rent, McMahon. Until you go to the agent’s office nobody round here will dare settle with him.’

‘I can’t pay.’

‘You must pay something.’

Clinton saw the muscles in the man’s neck knit and tighten.

‘I’m glad it’s your lordship says so. Sure if ye were Mr Wright I’d have you out soon enough.’

‘If you resist personal service of a writ, I’ll apply for an order of substitution from the courts. The notice could be stuck up on any wall in the village and you couldn’t help that.’

The woman made a move towards her husband but his expression was so menacing that she backed away.

‘They’d still have to take me,’ he snarled.

‘Certainly.’

‘I’ve planted every stick and raised every stone on this place and I’ll not part with it.’

Surprised by McMahon’s sudden frenzy, and seeing his eyes fixed on the bill-hook, Clinton decided to be conciliatory. ‘I said nothing about eviction; only that you must pay off some of your arrears.’

‘I tell you I can’t,’ he shouted, clenching his fists.

‘Then drive your cattle to the pound and I’ll release them for a token.’

McMahon stared at him uncomprehending, his eyes glittering with anger. ‘Is it myself to be first to break the pledge? I’d die first.’

For a moment the tension of the man’s nerves seemed so great that Clinton thought he was gathering himself to spring at him. But, as if on a sudden impulse, he flung open the door and dashed out of the room. The woman screamed after him: ‘No, Joe. No, d’ye hear?’ She turned hysterically to Clinton. ‘He’ll murder you, sir.’ She flung open the window and looked at him imploringly, but he stood where he was and took out his revolver; her gaze fastened on the dull wink of the barrel and she began to scream. As McMahon kicked open the door, she flung herself at him, almost knocking the blunderbuss from his hands. In the second it took him to brush her aside with the butt, Clinton hurled himself forward. As both men fell to the ground the gun went off with a detonation like a cannon, lighting the room with a sheeting orange flash. Blinded by a thick pall of acrid smelling powder-smoke, Clinton could not see if either of the others had been hurt. The woman was moaning now, but when McMahon lifted her she ran behind the hen-coops. The dresser was pitted with small shot and McMahon was bleeding from a wound in the arm. Since the gun was a muzzle-loader and both barrels had been discharged, Clinton dusted himself and put away his revolver; his ribs ached where he had come up against the corner of a stool. McMahon looked in astonishment at the dark blood welling from his arm. The smoke was starting to disperse through the open window. Clinton picked up the blunderbuss and walked past McMahon to the door. Though the man was losing blood, Clinton was sure that the pellets of sparrow-hail had caused no serious injury. Shaken and angry, his first thought was to ride to the nearest magistrate, but if the man were to be charged with attempted murder on his word alone, the rent strike would probably be strengthened. The wife might well perjure herself and because McMahon had been the only one hurt, local people might even believe that the landlord had himself provoked the attack.

McMahon followed Clinton out of the house, his damaged arm clasped to his chest. His eyes were glazed with shock and his breath came in gasps.

‘What’ll your honour do?’

‘See a magistrate,’ said Clinton slowly, noting the man’s look of despair. ‘Or you can come to the agent’s office tomorrow.’

McMahon stood in silence for a few seconds with bowed head and then nodded.

‘You’ll come?’

‘I will,’ he sighed, turning away.

Crossing the yard, Clinton came to a rock, and grasping the blunderbuss by the butt, brought down the barrel with all his strength on the lump of limestone. On
the second blow the metal snapped away from the stock and fell cracked and twisted to the ground.

Riding back in the direction of Rathkenny, Clinton felt little satisfaction. Only the woman’s action had saved him from having to shoot the man or face being shot by him. Luck rather than judgement had brought him victory, if such it could be called. Around him the barren amphitheatre of rocks and hills stretched away without relief except where streamers of mist lay in the bog hollows among the stones and heather. A little later the hidden sun pierced the bank of low clouds above the village, sweeping the brown hills with moving beams of silver.

*

Shortly before half-past three that afternoon, Esmond knocked at his mother’s door to ask whether she was ready. At about this time on most fine days Lady Ardmore went out for a short carriage ride. During the morning it had been agreed that today Esmond and Theresa should accompany her.

Dressed in a heavy fur-lined pelisse and an old-fashioned bonnet with puffs of tulle and muslin flowers sewn inside the brim, Lady Ardmore sat in a tall-backed chair among the étagères and
whatnots
, which, with her large half-tester bed, occupied almost every foot of the floor. Since she rarely used any of the downstairs sitting-rooms she had filled her bedroom with a chaotic collection of treasured things: blue knotted Dresden candlesticks, a fragile Wedgwood tea-service, silver cardcases, Pompadour fans and screens in crewel work. Esmond threaded his way across the room and sat down next to her on a small cane chair. She looked at him anxiously and sighed.

‘I wish I knew what to talk about with her.’

‘Anything you like,’ he reassured her.

The long sad lines which ran down from her nose to the corners of her mouth, making her look sour and discontented, filled him with pity. He had shared with her the years that had done most to etch those lines: the agonising period before his father had finally rejected them both. Neither her rouged cheeks nor the ridiculous flowers inside her bonnet had any power to arouse his criticism or mockery. In truth her weaknesses deepened his affection for her, contrasting so poignantly with the image of her he had preserved from childhood as the guardian angel who could do no wrong. Now
she could sleep only with the help of laudanum and suffered the cruel indignity of indigestion that would sometimes bring a foam of bubbles to her lips in spite of heroic efforts to prevent this. Often he thought that her love for him was all that connected her with the world; her interest in his doings her only hold on reality. She was pulling at one of her rings and seemed worried.

‘It’s so hard.’ she said, ‘to ask her anything at all without appearing to be prying into her past. You do see that, don’t you, Esmond?’

‘Of course,’ he replied gently.

His mother raised her gold-rimmed lorgnette and gazed at him with a wistful smile.

‘I’m afraid she hasn’t made you happy, my poor boy.’

The fierce tenderness of her voice touched and yet disturbed him. If anything could bring her contentment, it would be his own happy marriage.

‘There’s no carpet for us over the stones, as the Irish say,’ he said lightly.

‘I can’t help feeling …’

‘She’ll be waiting, mother.’

Lady Ardmore made an impatient gesture.

‘Let her wait. You shouldn’t let her dominate you. That was my mistake with your father.’ She paused and thrust her hands into the fur muff on her knees. ‘The way she almost told you how you ought to feel towards Clinton. I could have hit her. I’m sorry but it’s true. Let an actress get the whip hand and you’re sure to be humiliated.’ She withdrew a hand from the muff and laid it on one of Esmond’s. ‘Promise me,’ she whispered emotionally, ‘Promise to take a firm line. If she still won’t agree to marry you in a month, tell her to go. You should never have let her stay; you’re too sensitive to
understand
women like her.’

‘She’s not at all how you think she is.’

Lady Ardmore made a slight clicking noise with her tongue and got up.

‘And when I know better, I suppose she’ll make a fool of me too?’

‘She wins over everybody in the end.’

‘I hope so, Esmond; really I do,’ she murmured, clutching his arm.

When they reached the hall, Esmond could see the old olive green barouche standing on the carriage sweep and could not help recalling with a throb of emotion how smart he had thought it when it had arrived from Dublin shortly after he and his mother had first come to Kilkreen. The horses had once been dappled greys but neglect and age had changed their coats into a slatey hue marked
with light smudges like lime or whitewash. The harness looked cracked and hard and in danger of breaking if the tongue of any buckle were to be thrust into an unaccustomed strap-hole. The coachman wore a dirty stained great-coat, and a wollen muffler like a London hansom driver. His face was almost hidden under a
broad-brimmed
hat slouched down over his eyes. Every time Esmond came to Kilkreen he longed to stop the servants’ exploitation of their mistress, but she had told him so emphatically that she liked everything as it was that he had accepted conditions which he would not have tolerated for five minutes in his own house. Having helped his mother into the faded silk-lined interior of the carriage, he returned to the hall expecting to find that Theresa had come down. Since he could see no sign of her, he ran upstairs to her room.