The Ladies (7 page)

At Woodstock, Sarah was dangerously ill. The doctor found quinsy of the throat and a high fever. A vein in her foot was opened to relieve the pressure of hot, inflamed blood.

Lady Betty sent word to her daughter: ‘I can't tell you how curious it all is. No man was concerned with either of them. Their plan was, I believe, no more than a scheme of romantic friendship, no more than what was fanciful and eccentric. Miss Eleanor writes three times each day to our Sarah. I cannot in conscience relay such crazed sentiments to her in her state. Sarah asks constantly for word from Miss Eleanor. I tell her only she has written once to inquire of her health and sent to me her thanks. Sarah is in a state of anxiety. Twice she has fainted when I felt obliged to say that no other words than these were contained in Miss Butler's letters. My dear, write her a letter of comfort and stop the ill-natured tongues of the world.'

To herself, Sarah talks constantly: ‘Why does she write nothing of her plans for us? I fear she has given me up. She thinks I am too frail for her strenuous life, too little and shallow for her large thoughts. Surely she will give me up. I will die. I am dying. I lie, like the Duke of Ormonde in Kilkenny Church, straight in my bed, an effigy in marble, my black feet on the sleek black back of an otter. Like Eleanor's ancestor, I will die of the bite to my neck by the oily beast, stretched to eternity atop my tomb, my nose cracked away, my fingers broken off at the joint by grave despoilers. No, not the bite of an otter, but instead the blast of a cannonball that removes my foolish head from my burning body. I will lie with my grandfather under the anonymous furze of the Slievnanon Hill we climbed yesterday on the way to Waterford. Or was it the day before? No, not of otter or of cannonball. I will die of her silence.'

Lady Betty wrote to Mrs. Harriet Cavanaugh at Borris: ‘I w
^d
be glad if you c
^d
prevent Miss Butler from writing so much to our Sarah. The volumes we receive here distress us. We hear Miss Butler is to be sent to a convent in France. I cann
^t
help but wish she had been safe in one long ago. She w
^d
have made us all happy.'

Margaret Cavanaugh responded to Lady Betty at once: ‘It is difficult to condone my sister's actions. We plan for her to go to live in the convent as you have heard. Her family and friends are very angry with her. She will, I fear, feel forever the bad consequences of this rash and unaccountable action.'

Lady Betty felt constrained to reassure Julia Tighe, who sent again and again
to know:
‘Sarah, whose conduct has the appearance of imprudence is, I am sure, void of serious impropriety. There are no Gentlemen concerned. I can hardly think that the cause is known to anyone but themselves.'

In the afternoon she wrote again: ‘No better. She talks wildly under the fever and cann
^t
eat. In her wildness she tells me Miss Butler flew away from a convent and it is her intention to save her from Popery. She says if we knew Miss Butler we would love her as much as she does. All together it is a most extraordinary affair.'

Eleanor appeared to accept her imprisonment at Borris. She sent letters daily to Sarah. To the convent plans she listened gravely and made no response: she knew she would never go. Eleanor placed a high value upon her own ingenuity and was certain she could outwit her parents and her sluggish, provincial sister and brother-in-law. Money for passage to Chambrai and the dowry to be bestowed on Holy Sepulchre Convent upon Eleanor's arrival had arrived at Borris. Eleanor discovered it had been hidden among her sister's camisoles and planned to relieve her family of the sum when the time came. Suspecting that her letters did not arrive at her beloved's bedside, she arranged for a basket of apples and cherries from the Borris orchard to be delivered to Sarah, at the bottom of which lay a wisp of paper:

‘M
_y
dear, I will be there today a week. Be well, and fix a place near you for me to hide. Make only small preparations so you will not be watched too closely. For escape we shall and this time we shall succeed.'

Eleanor left Borris on foot. She carried a small carpet bag, well furnished with her convent dowry and some light changes of linen. She wore handsome breeches, a warm shirt, and a cape, all removed secretly from her brother-in-law's clothes press. Her heavy boots were her own, saved from her first flight. She added a man's cap, borrowed from a servant. She felt fine, comfortable and safe as she walked the twelve miles through hill country to the river town of Inistiogue. There she stopped for food, wine, and lodging. To her delight, she was greeted as ‘Sir' by the innkeeper.

Early next morning she went on to Woodstock, along the roads made dangerous by the skulking presence of the Whiteboys and the notorious Freyney. She reassured herself by thinking that the Whiteboys' targets were usually priests and tithe collectors. So determined was her gait, so confident her masculine appearance that she was not stopped. When she came to the hanging beechwood inside the entrance to Woodstock she sighed with relief: the pounds she carried in her bag would have enriched Freyney and the Whiteboys for some time.

In the dusk of early evening, Eleanor entered the house unobserved through a hall window left open for her by Sarah's maid. She found Sarah much recovered. They embraced, lingering in each other's arms, relishing the absence of the chill of separation. To their besotted eyes there was no sight in the world more welcome than the presence of the other.

Eleanor is weary from her two days' march. She falls asleep almost at once. Sarah lies beside her, watching her face, listening to her soft breathing. She finds herself breathing in unison with her, as though they were walking in stride. Then she dares to touch Eleanor's arm, her damp curls, her beloved face. So it happens that frightened and long-deprived persons, in one free moment, discover the privileges of the body and the rewards of inconceivable love. In one tender motion towards the other, they rejoice in their discovery.

For two days Eleanor remained in Sarah's bedroom, eating bread and cheese and cake smuggled to her when Sarah returned from meals, escaping into the clothes closet at the first sound of someone approaching in the hall. Their days and nights were spent enjoying the luxury of their union.

But the house was not large enough and the inhabitants too many to make concealment possible for very long. Sir William suspected something was amiss. Perhaps it was the absence of Sarah from her usual haunts on the stone benches at the far recesses of the garden that made him wonder. His suspicion that she was avoiding him brought him one late morning unannounced to her door. There was no time for Eleanor to enter the cupboard. They were discovered together, reading a volume of letters by Madame de Sévigné to her daughter.

Puzzled by what to do about Lady Eleanor's presence in her house, Lady Betty responded in the only way she knew, by inviting her to dinner. Eleanor accepted, hungry for a hot dinner, but sat at the table in stony silence, her eyes averted from the despised Sir William. He recognized her coldness by going to his study immediately after supper and writing to Lord Butler. He asked him to come and remove his daughter.

Five terrible days of uncertainty and fears passed at Woodstock. Then a messenger, the solicitor Edward Parke of Kilkenny (nephew to Sarah's school mistress), brought word from Eleanor's father: Lord Butler now acknowledged the inevitable. Eleanor could leave and go where she wished as long as she did not settle in Ireland. She could take the convent monies with her. He would send a small annuity when she was settled and could provide an address. There was one unalterable condition: she was never to seek to visit any member of the family or to communicate with them so long as she should live. Eleanor bowed her head at the absoluteness of the decree, and agreed.

Lady Betty tried one final appeal to Sarah, for her conscience would not allow her to go off unwarned. While Eleanor rested one afternoon, she sought a private conference with her niece:

‘Your friend has a debauched mind,' she told her. ‘You will never both be able to agree if you live together. Friendship needs to be based on virtue. Yours has no such foundation and will not, I am certain, last.'

Sarah listened and made no reply.

Lady Betty wrote to her daughter: ‘Anything said against Miss Butler is death to Sarah.' And when Lady Betty retired in tears to her bedroom one evening, and Eleanor said she would take her evening walk, Sir William detained Sarah and tried one last time to make a difference in her decision. Awkwardly, heavily, he fell to his knees, his Bible in one hand. With the other he grabbed Sarah's hand:

‘I will never more offend you. I will double the thirty-pound allowance you now receive, if you give up this mad enterprise. Oh Sarah'—he held out his Bible—‘I will never more offend you. I am sorry to have angered you, but I swear on this Holy Writ that it was not meant as you have taken it and understood it.'

‘Please, Uncle, please rise.'

‘It was my gallantry that you read as an annoyance.' He did not get up.

Sarah was silent. She withdrew her hand and left Sir William still on his knees. She went upstairs, where she found Eleanor, who was too concerned at Sarah's being left alone with Sir William to walk very far from the house. Eleanor took Sarah into her arms. Sarah buried her face in the rough cloth of Eleanor's riding jacket (for she had worn these clothes every day in expectation of their second flight) and cried.

‘If the whole world kneeled to me as Sir William has just done, I would not alter my intention to live and die with you,' she said. Eleanor stroked Sarah's hair from her wet face and kissed her on the mouth, sealing their mutual decision in a sacrament she knew the world would surely withhold from them.

The Woodstock opposition could not withstand the surrender of the castle or the two women's soundless but adamant resolution. More confused than convinced, the Fowneses gave in, made a promise to send £50 yearly to Sarah, and then retired to their rooms, upset and routed.

To her daughter Lady Betty sent her daily note: ‘It is most extraordinary. God knows how it could be. Or how they will end.'

On the twenty-second of April, at six in the morning, eighteen days after their first attempt to achieve their freedom, they leave again, but this time without hampering by difficult plans, darkness, and illness. They are accompanied by Mary-Caryll, who happily volunteers to carry their bags and Frisk as far as Waterford. It is a fine spring morning. For the last time, they pass through the hawthorn hedge and under the great trees. Overhead, hawks wind their slow, commanding way through a flock of starlings. Sarah looks back at the gardens she has loved, at peacocks making an early morning progress from their thicket, and then, she turns quickly ahead.

Exhausted by the emotional turmoil of the past fortnight, Sir William stands at his upstairs window, watching them through half-opened eyes. They are laughing, they move rapidly along the road that curves past Woodstock toward Inistiogue. The sight of Eleanor's dark male clothes and cap, the smiling Sarah, the laden-down bulk of the maid, offend his sight. He closes his eyes on the little procession and turns away. Lady Betty is seated at the other end of the room. She refuses to witness the departure and weeps quietly into her handkerchief.

‘Stop such silliness. We are well rid of her.'

Lady Betty stares at him. ‘You … You …' and then cannot bring herself to finish what she had in mind to say to him.

‘When that ungrateful Bruiser of a maid returns, dismiss her.'

Lady Betty replies: ‘Oh yes. Of course, I had intended to do that.'

‘We are well rid of them all,' he repeats and sits down heavily in his upholstered chair. His legs are painful, his head aches. He puts his foot on the high stool. ‘I feel my age today, Betty,' he says.

‘It is time,' she says, looking him directly in the eye.

At Waterford they bid Mary-Caryll goodbye and promise to send for her when they are settled. She tells them: ‘I will then come fast, my Ladies.' They pay the fifteen guineas for each passage, murmuring at the outlay from their capital, and sail across St. George's Channel, safely avoiding the rude approaches of the American privateer, Paul Jones, landing at Milford Haven. They have decided they will travel north first, through Wales. They are sustained by the astonishing glory of each other's loving company; their hearts are set on a journey that will bring them to the haven where they plan to spend the rest of their days savouring their curious union. Their destination, they believe, is London.

Thirty days later, Sir William Fownes is stricken and starts to die. His doctors decide on bleeding until he is too weak to leave his bed. Leeches are placed on his chest, his arms and thighs and back, but the suppurating blisters raised by the cantharides cause him extreme pain. They cure nothing. He endures a week of such violence against his weakness. One night he wakes with the sense that half of him has died: speechless, blind, and paralyzed, his body is finally rid of its lubricious energies. By morning he is unconscious; he lies mercifully unaware of mortal deprivation. He does not hear Lady Betty praying at his bedside; he does not know of Death's unwelcome arrival. Death, a libertine figure not unlike Sir William himself, claims the Squire and then, as though a high price had not already been paid for all the unnatural acts of the spring, he returns to Woodstock three weeks later to take weakened and bewildered Lady Betty. Woodstock is now without squire and lady, Mary-Caryll has gone to Ross to await the Ladies' summons, and Sarah Ponsonby: where is she? Travelling the highways and towns of Wales with her beloved friend, gone from Woodstock forever.

WALES: 1778–1780

Later, when they were settled, the Ladies would refer to it pleasantly as their
wanderjahr,
forgetting to add how terrible it was. Like harassed gypsies they moved from place to place, pursued by fear of poverty, even destitution, hounded by their own troubled indecision and misgivings. Where should they settle? How could they afford the high cost of life in provincial English towns? In London? They travelled in slow stages, explored with distaste the outcroppings of coal at Carmarthen in south Wales, and then went north towards Birmingham. Each village and township was considered a possible stopping place. Each was marked in Eleanor's travel book with a plus or minus sign, and then noted was the number of miles distant from London.