In the Company of Others (11 page)

Thirteen

It was a beautiful room, graceful in proportion, though smelling of stale cigarette smoke, mild damp, dogs. A fire simmered on the hearth.

A table in front of a large window, its view to the lake obscured by rain. Framed photographs. Bottles. Glasses. A vase with roses. Behind the sofa, a game table and four chairs—where the blood would be let, he reckoned. Much furniture in the room; a massive ottoman stacked with books, stationed on the medallion of a worn Aubusson. Dog beds in a far corner.

He glanced up, then, and drew in his breath. The portrait above the mantel was stunning in the true sense of the word.

A slender, dark-haired young woman of uncommon beauty looked directly at the observer. Penetrating brown eyes, a necklace of pearls, a gown of aquamarine satin, a pale arm draped casually over the upholstered arm of the French chair in which she was sitting . . .

He approached the portrait, examined it closely. It had the finesse and style of a Sargent, but surely no Sargent would be hanging in these remote regions.

He couldn’t take his eyes off hers; there was a palpable sense of the sitter’s presence; something of iron resolve, something, too, of anger or remorse. As if loath to invade her privacy or stare too brazenly, he stepped away.

The insistent gaze drew him back.
Look here, I have something that must be said
.

In the strong cheekbones, the chiseled nose, the anxious brow, he saw Liam.

He moved to the fire and turned his back to the soft blaze. August, and the warmth felt good to him.

Above the double doorway, another portrait—Riley Conor, he presumed. Short, portly, muscular, bemused. Wearing boots and jodhpurs, a tweed jacket—holding what appeared to be a small prayer book and leaning on the back of a leather chair before shelves of books rendered carefully by the brush. His brown eyes squinted, as if set to the task of puzzling out a riddle.

He walked to the ottoman at the center of the room; looked again above the mantel and again above the doorway. The subjects of the portraits coolly assessed each other across the divide.

Look here, I have something that
. . .

The doors opened, his hostess entered. He felt the odd fear and excitement of a child who imagines a monster living beneath his bed.

‘Missus Evelyn McGuiness Conor,’ boomed Seamus, ‘the Reverend Timothy Andrew Kav’na.’

The heavy doors were closed behind her.

She was petite, erect, severe, with the piercing gaze of the portrait nearly intact. He bowed. It was a completely involuntary gesture, and very slight, but she recognized it at once; it had been a good thing to do.

She extended her hand. ‘Mister Kav’na.’

‘Mrs. Conor.’ So she was skipping the reverend business. ‘Thank you for having me.’ He pressed her hand lightly—he might have captured a small bird. ‘I was just admiring your portrait.’

‘Thank you for coming, Mister Kav’na. It isn’t every day we can round up a fourth.’ She leaned on her cane.

‘I’m afraid you’ll find me a very lame duck.’

‘You’ll make up for it with interesting conversation, I’m sure. As for the portrait, it was done in this very room, by an Irishman—after Mister Sargent’s rendition of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw.’

‘And very well done, indeed.’

‘Mister Conor and I had lately returned to Catharmore from our honeymoon on the Amalfi Coast. I was twenty, but my waist’—she smiled thinly—‘was eighteen—like your Scar-lett O’Hara, I’m told. Let us be seated, Mister Kav’na.’

He offered the smile he relied on when parishioners commented on his sermon and he realized they’d heard something entirely different from what he’d said.

Evelyn Conor walked stiffly across the room with the aid of her cane and sat in a high-backed chair by the fire; at her direction, he occupied the end of the sofa to her right. She was a woman of considerable beauty even now, though better than sixty years had passed since she sat for a painter who knew what he was about.

Her long hair was loosely bound at the back of her head and dark, still, though with a wide streak of silver above what his mother had called a ‘widow’s peak.’ Her cheeks were palely rouged, her long-sleeved black dress simply cut; she wore no ornament. He could not imagine this woman clambering up a stepstool.

‘Because of my fine nose, the painter wished to render me in profile after Mister Sargent’s Madame X. But my husband and I preferred to realize our money’s worth by having it done straight on.’

‘A wise decision.’

‘That is my late husband’s portrait above the door.’

‘A very agreeable-looking man. Liam speaks of him with affection.’ He hadn’t meant to say that.

‘Liam speaks eagerly of his father, but scarcely mentions his mother. I don’t suppose they’ve told you I’m dying?’

‘They haven’t.’

‘They never do. It’s left to me to do the telling.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘No use to be sorry. We must all go sometime. ’ She briefly drummed the chair arm with her fingers, gazed past him.

‘But death is not important, Mister Kav’na.’ She gave him a fierce look. ‘It cannot frighten me, for I have been purified by suffering.’

He didn’t know where to step with this.

‘Doctor Feeney and Father O’Reilly will be late. I trust you have some expertise at making drinks? Our man is occupied in the kitchen.’

‘Of course. What sort of drinks, Mrs. Conor?’ Nothing with small umbrellas or fruit, definitely not.

‘Gin and tonic for myself. Would you be up to it?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said, shooting from the sofa.

At the table, he adjusted his bifocals, stooped, peered at labels on the several bottles, located the gin. Two bottles, different labels. Tonic very handy, no problem. A small dish with wedges of lemon and lime. Glasses in two different sizes.

‘What measurements do you prefer, Mrs. Conor?’

‘Two to one, thank you.’

‘Would that be two of tonic?’

‘Of gin, Mister Kav’na.’

Maybe he should use the short glass.

‘And what label, if I may?’

‘The green label, if you please.’

The English were known to lay off the ice, but perhaps that custom didn’t extend to these shores.

‘Ice, Mrs. Conor?’

‘No ice, Mister Kav’na. The ice is for you; I’m told Americans enjoy the curious habit of watering down perfectly good spirits.’

‘Let’s see. Short glass or tall?’ He had expected a root canal, and he was getting it.

‘Have you
never
done this, Mister Kav’na?’

‘Not really.’

‘The short glass, as you so quaintly put it.’

‘Almost done—lemon or lime?’

‘Lime, thank you.’

‘Coming up.’ He let out his breath, which he realized he’d been holding, and stirred the drink with a silver muddle.

‘No
stirring
, if you please. It bruises the gin.’

This was no root canal, after all; it was brain surgery. He managed to deliver the thing, with a napkin.

She looked up at him, raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you teetotal, Mister Kav’na?’

‘No, ma’am, not at all. I’m a sherry man.’ He felt the perfect fool for saying it. A sherry man.

‘Sherry,’ she said with distaste. ‘An English habit.’

Spanish, too, he might add.

‘You’re in Ireland, Mister Kav’na, you can’t go about as dry as the bones of Ezekiel.’

‘Cheers,’ he said, terse. The morning with Anna had hardly quickened his regard for Evelyn Conor.

‘
Slainte!
’ She lifted her glass and turned to a contrivance by the mantel, pressing a button.

Seamus’s voice boomed into the room. ‘Yes, mum.’

‘Do we have sherry in some remote quarter?’

‘Oh, yes, mum, we do, indeed. Only a moment. ’

Why couldn’t he be like everyone else instead of standing out like a sore thumb? But he’d never been like everyone else; he’d always stood out like a sore thumb.

‘I enjoyed my tour of your handsome rooms. The entrance hall is a great tribute to classical form—a privilege to see it.’

‘It is an Irish house.’

‘Yes.’

‘Historians tell us that Catharmore was a fine school of architecture. Doctor O’Donnell had access to a few very skilled men, who tutored a legion of the unskilled. Many trades were learnt here.’ She drank with evident thirst.

‘Have you read O’Donnell’s journal?’

‘I have not. I admire him for what he accomplished, but find his ramblings tiresome. A very inward-seeming man, in my view.’ She dabbed the corners of her mouth with the napkin. ‘I trust you and your wife are enjoying your stay.’ She appeared to lack interest in his reply.

‘We’re enjoying it very much, thank you.’ He glanced at his watch—he was needing backup.

‘In your Protestant religion, sir, I hear there is great distress.’

‘Well, of course, we have the same religion, you and I, Catholic and Protestant—we both believe in the divinity of the Christ, the head of the Church, the one who entered into death that we might have life. As for great distress, I believe it is fully shared between Catholic and Protestant.’

The Great Distress. He would have to remember that.

‘And to what do you account such disarray?’

‘Disobedience, Mrs. Conor.’

‘The Protestants were in disobedience against the Irish for more than seven centuries. What do you say to that, Mister Kav’na?’

‘I say that we were gravely mistaken.’

‘The Irish are suddenly quick to forget. I shall not forget.’

‘I feel the need is not to forget, but to forgive. Where there is forgiveness, the heart of stone becomes a heart of flesh.’

‘I’ll thank you not to preach to me.’

‘I was not preaching, Mrs. Conor, I was making an observation out of my own experience.’ To be precise, out of his father’s experience of unforgiveness, and the calamity it caused on all sides.

She drank, appeared abstracted. ‘I dislike late arrivals.’

‘The rain,’ he said.

The realization had begun when he took her hand, and now came all of a piece—he had known Evelyn Conor for most of his life. Nearly every parish had one, though he couldn’t recall that any had been so proficient at the acid tongue. He was reminded, too, of his father’s lacerating coldness, which rendered Evelyn Conor’s behavior somehow familiar; the thought that they had met in other times and places, shared some sort of past, was oddly relieving.

She drew in her breath. He checked his watch.

‘I had hoped to meet Paddy.’

‘Paddy is in Sligo on business. You can see him in the portrait of my late husband, if you like. The spit image.’

Rain streaming onto the glistening panes. The fire smoldering. A clock ticking.

‘I don’t suppose anyone from Broughadoon has sent their compliments?’ she asked.

‘Why, yes. They did. Thank you for reminding me. Mr. William Donavan sends his compliments.’ What William actually said was, ‘A tip of me cap to the oul’ scrape.’

‘You must pass mine along to him, and to the rest of the household,’ she said. ‘And Mister Kav’na ...’

‘Yes, Mrs. Conor?’

‘I hope you won’t need reminding.’

‘You can count on it.’

The doors opened. Three rain-soaked dogs burst into the room, followed by James Feeney and a stout and laughing priest wearing a dark suit. Seamus and his silver tray brought up the rear.

Deo gratias
.

He stood, took a deep breath, buttoned his jacket. Tonight, he would be the evening gazette.

Fourteen

Messages at Broughadoon.

The afternoon nap—he was perishing for want of it.

Thinking of Lew, he prayed his way upstairs, slipped into their room, undressed, and climbed into bed next to his napping wife.

But he couldn’t sleep. He was wired from the coffee he’d slugged down at the bridge table. At Catharmore, they didn’t know from decaf.

‘Home is the hunter from the hill ...’ She turned to him, smiled. He was ever amazed that she appeared glad to see him.

‘It’s hard being too beautiful to get invited anywhere,’ she said, propping on an elbow.

‘You’re invited up one afternoon before we leave; Seamus will show you around. Except for bridge days, she naps from two ’til four.’

‘Well done, darling. It’s a little cool, I’ll just put on my robe and you can tell me everything.’ She sat up and slipped into the Shred, then thumped down beside him, expectant.

‘Emma says Lew Boyd has prostate cancer.’

‘Thank God he has Earlene. I’ll pray. I’m so sorry.’

‘Puny found my cell phone.’ He felt sheepish; he’d almost rather it was stolen. ‘She saw Dooley and Lace on their way to the lake. Dooley emailed to say he couldn’t contact my cell. And Katherine would like a hair appointment for tomorrow after one o’clock—she hopes you’ll arrange it and ride with her.’

‘Only Katherine would fly all night, change planes, drive to Lough Arrow, then race out to get her hair done.’ She drank from her water glass. ‘I’ll take care of it; surely there’s some place around here. Okay, get going.’

‘Where to begin?’

‘The house.’

‘As handsome on the inside as it is plain without.’ He told her about lintels, cornices, columns, pilasters; stuffed fish in glass cases; the windowed kitchen, the tumbled garden.

‘Did you see the surgery?’

‘Seamus says they don’t venture belowstairs except at gunpoint. More than a little dereliction going on at Catharmore, but most of it out of view.’

‘What does she look like?’

‘A little like Rose Kennedy, and a lot like Liam. You’ll enjoy seeing her portrait as a young woman—it could pass for a Sargent but was done by an Irishman. She told me she’s dying, but Feeney said later she’s dying in the same way we’re all dying. He said he’s trying to get her in for blood work, he’s concerned for her liver, but so far there’s nothing seriously wrong that leaving off the drink wouldn’t cure.’

‘Was she the ogre?’

‘She was eviscerating, to say the least. I was alone with her for maybe twenty minutes, but it seemed an eternity.’

Rain streamed against the windows.

‘She eased up over drinks and lunch—maybe a bit sloshed, and quite the coquette. But as soon as the cards hit the table, she was a terror all over again.’

‘Who was your partner?’

‘Three guesses. I dealt the first hand, and if you could have seen mine, you’d have foundered yourself with laughter. Talk about dying.’

‘A bust.’

‘And then some. But her cards were good and I managed to provide a little help, after all. They couldn’t set us—we won.’

‘Hooray!’

‘An amazing piece of business with the dogs. They bounded into the drawing room sopping wet—she looked them in the eye, pointed to their beds, and away they slunk with nary a yap. I’d pay cash money for that trick.’

‘How is my good doctor?’

‘Feeney inquired about you at length, he’ll drop around tomorrow evening. He told some great stories about his country practice, but I must say Father O’Reilly was the life of the party. His Irish name is Tadhg O Raghailligh—call me Tad, he says. Told me that Tadhg translates to the anglicized Timothy.

‘He seemed to take pleasure in something Freud said, that the Irish were the only people who couldn’t be helped by psychoanalysis.’

‘Makes me prouder still of my drop from Connemara,’ she said.

‘He grew up in a two-room cottage with his parents, five brothers, three sisters, and a pony.’

‘A pony? In the house?’

‘Only in winter. Tad was the eldest, and right from the get-go, set apart by his mother for the priesthood. From infancy up, she introduced him as her son the priest. In seminary, said he slept in a room with only two other boys and felt lonely as Longfellow’s cloud—missed the body heat and the roughhousing. ’t was no comfort bein’ rich, he said. A charming fellow.

‘We went on a bit about Irish poetry—in the old days, he says Ireland’s standing army of poets never fell below ten thousand.’

She drew in her breath, marveling. He relished the role of Gazetteer.

‘Then we talked about the pull Ireland puts on its scattered people, the way it has of calling us back. Tad says no use to look for our ancestors in the cemeteries and church registers—we meet them in the DNA of the folks across the table, in the street, in the pew. I realized I was breaking bread with people whose ancestral blood was spilled with that of the Kavanaghs. It was affecting.’

‘And these lovely men keep coming to her bridge table, year after year?’

In a way that’s almost certainly conflicted, I think they care about her. Hard to imagine, but . . . in a nutshell, glad I went. How about you?’

‘Painted like a house afire.’

She took her sketchbook from the night table and opened it and held it up for him to see.

Pud.

He laughed outright.

Pud sitting in the wing chair near the fire, looking at the painter—solemn as a judge, as Peggy used to say.

‘You’re an amazing woman. This is extraordinary. We’ll have to frame it and hang it over the telly.’

‘Something’s going on with my work—it’s getting better, I think. It started with the portrait of Maureen—some huge step has been taken, I don’t understand how or why. You know I’ve always been comfortable painting animals but afraid of painting people. Today, I kept waiting for the fear to come back, but it didn’t. It’s thrilling. Look.’

He was knocked out by a close-up of Bella’s face, it filled the page. Another pair of eyes that expressed a deeper context than he could read
. I have something that must be said
. . .

He stared at the curious way she had set her mouth, as if holding hostage a secret power and defying any search for it.

‘Out of the park,’ he said.

‘We had a long talk; she softened toward me. I told her how I tried to take my own life. I don’t know why I told her that, except I felt she needed to hear it, that it would mean something. I painted while we were talking. She took her mask off once or twice; I watched the way her feelings shifted. She’s a very deep and profound young woman. And she knows something, Timothy, something she’s desperate to talk about. It’s like a worm gnawing at her.’

‘And isn’t that the way with all of us? Remember me telling you about old Vance Havner?—he said everybody’s tryin’ to swallow somethin’ that won’t go down.’ He’d seen it in his years of counseling parishioners; he’d seen it in himself, again and again, and this morning in Anna. The gnawing worm was ever-present in a broken world.

‘I’m probably imagining things,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ve been too shut-in, too close to everyone here.’

Their habit of telling each other everything did not include all he was told in confidence as a priest; they were in agreement early on about that sticky business—so far, he’d said little about the meeting with Anna.

‘How’s the ankle?’

‘Swollen. Aggravating. Aren’t you going to take a nap?’

‘Can’t,’ he said, getting out of bed. ‘Maybe I’ll read awhile in the journal, there’s plenty of time before dinner. What about you?’

She held up a paperback. ‘Patrick Kav’na, the old dear.’

‘Tad is a great fan of Kav’na, likes him for his harrows and ricks, the provincialism Yeats chastised. And by the way, St. Patrick didn’t drive out the snakes, there were never any here to begin with.’ Tad had been a fount of information.

He sat in his chair by the window and turned to the page he’d marked with a sheet from his notebook. Rain sang in the gutters; the scent of something baking drifted up from the kitchen ovens.

21 January 1862

My heart is greatly rejoiced—I have gone on my knees before God at the Mass Rock & thanked Him with everything in me—Caitlin sitting up & looking alive as if woken from the dead.

I had been condemning myself most painfully for the failure of the many methods used to revive her, including a variety of nauseous Tonics recommended by Jones Quinn. I am thankful that the Great Physician dissuaded me from the practice of leeching—a practice I abhor, but was ready to use if her languor persisted.

I walked into the Cabin this morning with an imaginary mount on an imaginary rope & handed the rope to Caitlin—She knew at once what I was promising for she had heard the hammering & commotion as Keegan framed the addition to Adam’s stall.

Capall she said to A who shrieked with joy—I wept as C gave a fond kiss to the old scar on my cheek, always a sign of her fondest favor. It was the first word she had spoken since Sunday a week & into the bargain she was pleased to choose the Irish word for horse.

Tis a fine bay mare on which C can go abroad on her own Rounds—alone or with Aoife as need be. She says she will call her Little Dorrit after the Dickens novel she so enjoys.

She has tonight supped a little poached trout, a little tea—it is A’s every desire that tomorrow her mistress will relish an egg from one of the hens & sop the yolk with a mite of A’s fine soda bread.

I have rolled up my pallet from the floor & will sleep again beside my wife. When she saw me doing this she smiled. Baile, I said, pointing in the direction of the house.

Baile, she said, her eyes very bright with happiness.

Soon, I said in English for I do not know the Irish for what is imminent.

A nudge against his leg. He looked down.

‘Out on bail,’ said his wife. ‘I let him come up and sleep under the bed. By the way, he doesn’t hear well—it’s his age, says Maureen.’

‘Where’s the shoe?’

‘I have it. He gets it back when he leaves the room. This way, you can sit and read in peace.’

‘A great idea.’

‘We’ll see,’ she said.

24 February 1862

Balfour has a most Poisonous tongue—he is often drunken & moves among the workmen as someone carrying the fever & infecting all who abide his foul ravings. He has twice refused payment for the Land deeded me—I am sick with anger for my witless impulse to take what cost nothing in order to more greatly supply the Needy. I may as well be a tenant in his view—he has long forgot his child who suffered near death until God wrought a miracle & enabled me to spare her life—nor does he seem to recall the many years of his dysentery which C fervently hopes—though she declines to pray—returns with a vengeance! But then I must strive to cure it again.

I have gone to the Mass Rock this day & prayed to God who didst teach the hearts of His faithful people by the sending to them the Light of the Holy Spirit & asked that He might grant me by the same Spirit to have right judgment in all things.

I trust it is not too late to have beseeched God for right judgment—C says that with God tis never too late.

Many delays in construction due to long sieges of punishing wether.

Keegan hung a young doe in the half-built stall & dressed it—A has never cooked deer loin thus Keegan will himself do the honors and has rigged a spit in the firebox. A Feast will bring much needed merriment to our hearth.

President Lincoln last month issued a war order authorizing aggression against the Confederacy. I had near forgot that country which educated and prospered me. I am saddened by the horrific tyranny of slavery, recognizing in it much that our own Irish have endured. Uncle freed his twelve slaves well before his passing, though our good Cook, Sukey, stayed on & was much accomplished in reading & writing. Her Cookery book writ in her own hand will come with our furnishings when we complete the many labours demanded by Catharmore.