The Pig Goes to Hog Heaven (21 page)

Kitty let the book fall.

Lolly shifted back from the cliff. She stood up, then paid the sea some final obeisance: a prolonged gaze. She started toward her car. After a few steps, she stopped. Kitty waited, hoping she'd continue on. She'd wait until Lolly was gone, then get up, her task completed, and go back to whatever work she could find for herself to do. When Lolly began to speak again, Kitty simply sat and listened, looking up at the cloud from the north.

“It was to me Declan came the night he buried the boy in the garden—though I didn't know that at the time, until he told me that day on the secret stair. That a change had come over him that night I knew, and him with more of a need of me than ever before, and I all gone wild to give. Let me say it and I'll go. We were together through the whole night, until he let me sleep just before morning. I had no dreams, but the sun woke me before too long went by. He was gone. That part hadn't changed. He was gone and the sun up full. But it was to me he had come that night and no one else besides. Only to me.”

Kitty waited to hear more, but there was no sound until the motor started and the car drove off. The cloud from the north changed course and headed out to sea.

12

D
eclan saw the infamous Bentley come into the courtyard, purring like a cat much too pleased with itself. With no other vehicle to inconvenience, it made a turn and came to a halt alongside the shed where he was working. Through a window opened to the country air, the man called out, “Hard at it, eh? And it's a great work you're doing.” He stepped out of the car and, with a ruthlessness that seemed central to his nature, slammed the door.

Again he was wearing his linens and silks, the only variant being the scarf, which this time had been dispensed with, the better to display an Adam's apple that seemed more a knot of words trapped in the man's throat to keep him from afflicting the earth with yet more pollutants.

Declan considered it best to simply continue his task and pay the least attention possible to the visitor. In an attempt to end the man's stay before it could begin, he muttered, “There's no one here. They're off.”

“So I understand.” The man spoke with a cheerfulness that revealed his preference for their absence. “Mrs. Sweeney to Dublin where she's to read from her most recent triumph, the title of which escapes me. And himself to somewhere below Blarney to see his brother on some business of which I'm ignorant.”

Declan was tempted to mutter, “To see a fine lady upon a white horse”, but he wanted as little conversation with this man as possible. He said nothing.

Undeterred, his lordship continued. “I regret the mishap that brought my recent visit to such an unhappy end. But that's hardly your concern. You are an artist and therefore exempt from the least regard for the woes of common mortals. But allow me to say your artistry shows an uncommon skill.”

The man waited for a response. When none seemed forthcoming, he plunged into what was obviously a well-prepared speech meant specifically for Declan's benefit. “The true reason I've come is to see again, as I did before, the masterly work you're doing here. As I'm sure you're aware, my family were once protectors of all these lands, including, of course, the castle. And I lack the words to tell you how deeply pleased I am to see the courtyard restored to its earlier perfection. What you're doing is the practice of a craft long in decline, allowing me the privilege—nay, the honor—of seeing the castle as my illustrious ancestors so happily beheld it.”

By a force of will not congenital to his character, Declan managed to control himself. The man paused, expecting, hoping, for some expression of gratitude for his fulsomeness. Puzzled by the lack of appreciation, but as determined as ever to complete his speech, he went on. “I'm told your name is Tovey. Fine name, too. I've already used the world
illustrious
, so I'm forced to say merely that it is a name distinguished by English gentlemen and scholars down through the ages. Is it possible that you're related to Sir Donald Francis Tovey, the great musicologist?”

Declan managed a look of utter incomprehension. His lordship chose to ignore the thatcher's lack of response. “He's a man who's added so much knowledge and enlightenment to our appreciation of the great composers and their noble works. You yourself are, from what I observe here, also a singular contributor to your own noble traditions. Hardly a surprise considering you're obviously descended from a familial line that continues to bring distinction to our English heritage.”

Declan was sore tempted to inform the man that “Tovey” was a corruption of the good name “Tuohy” imposed upon his family by authorities inclined to record names more congenial to their own spelling than the names spoken in a language they were determined to render extinct. Rather than reclaim their original identity at a later date, his family had decided to retain the imposition lest they forget the corruptions thrust upon them, determined that the name be a perpetual reminder of perfidies practiced during the centuries of imperial intrusion. Let his lordship rattle on. He obviously had some insidious intent, and perhaps, before long, he would indict himself completely.

Which he did. Forthwith. “As you may have overheard during my recent visit, my attempt to claim my birthright—the castle and all these grounds—were diverted by some legal misunderstandings. I am sure you appreciate my determination to take up again my obligations to my forebears, and it occurred to me that I might enlist your own good offices. That a generous remuneration is involved goes without saying. And since we obviously share a common past, it came to me as in a dream, that the fates had put me into the company of one who might lend his support to a plan that should restore these lands and the castle itself to their legitimate owner. Myself, of course. No, you need say nothing now.”

In a hushed voice meant to suggest confidentiality and the need for secrecy, with the unsubtle hint that the conspiracy admitted only the most privileged into its company, he said, “I will expand on this at some near date. There's a boy over there, reading, who might overhear, much to our disadvantage. You understand.”

That a boy was there, reading, Declan had understood from the beginning, but he also understood that the man was plotting some mischief that could not possibly be to the benefit of his Kerry compatriots. Rather than become enraged, he immediately decided that feigned complicity was the better course. There was more to be revealed. And here was a God-given opportunity to become a recipient of these revelations. In the mutter he knew the man had come to expect, he said, without interrupting his work, “I might possibly be the one you're looking for. But I'll need to know more.”

“And you shall. You shall. Soon enough. Meanwhile, make no mention of today's visit. And instruct the boy to forget that I stopped by. As for you, Mr. Tovey—as for
us
I should say—we shall meet again and all will be put before you. We needn't make a gesture of our pledge, with the boy in attendance. But I consider this visit most successful. And I don't doubt that, in time, you will come to a similar conclusion. Let us content ourselves with my goodbye. And my promise to return—at an even more propitious time.
Au revoir
, my countryman.” His slight bow, his smile, captured so accurately the oily farewells of so many villains in so many ill-acted films that Declan managed to stifle a hiss only by reminding himself that there existed a plot against his friends, and that he, Declan Tovey—of Tuohy descent—had been appointed by heaven itself to frustrate it in the making.

After the Bentley had made its self-satisfied departure, Peter came to where Declan was working. “That was Mr. Shaftoe. Mr. Sweeney saved his life. He was going to jump from the top of the tower because he wanted the castle and it wasn't to be allowed. But Mr. Sweeney wouldn't let him. Jump, I mean. Did he come to try it again, do you know?”

“I know nothing. And there's nothing I need to know. Keep watch at what I'm doing. And let our agreement be enforced. No talking.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, yes, Mr. Tovey.”

“Tuohy if you want.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Never mind. Just remember. No talking.”

The boy stood where he was, watching, the book held against his side. Declan Tovey—Tuohy of old—went on with his work.

Lord Shaftoe, to continue the work to which he was now so completely committed, went to his London tailor to have himself outfitted in the eighteenth-century clothing worn by his ancestor, the gentleman threatened by the Irish rabble with a gunpowder plot that would surpass the perfidy of Guy Fawkes and all the papist traitors conspiring against a Crown and a Parliament committed to the cause of supremacy and to the preservation of privilege. Not for his lordship the musty threads still reeking with the sweat of actors or the perfumes of masqueraders. Not for him the mothy leavings of the long-gone dead. Nothing but the new and the unique would do. He alone would wear these garments; he alone would reserve to himself the right to future vestings. (His one concession to inauthenticity was his decision to wear, instead of the joined cotton tubings that served as undergarments in his ancestor's time, his own silk boxer shorts, secure in the knowledge that no incident would expose, as it were, his inconsistency.)

His lordship had taken his presumed compatriot, Declan Tovey, into his confidence as to the reasons for this extravagance. Since Mr. Tovey's cooperation seemed assured to get him into the castle at the chosen time—when Mr. and Mrs. Sweeney would not be present but would return sometime after dark, dark being an integral element to carrying out his plot successfully—he had now moved on to the next phase of his plan.

At a date not that distant from his first interview with the estimable Mr. Tovey, he returned now to confide in him, spelling out in gleeful detail his brilliant scheme. “I will be dressed in a somewhat peculiar manner, but give it no heed. It will replicate the clothing worn by my illustrious ancestor, one of the more than several who legitimize my claim to the castle. I'll not go into the details of that, but suffice it to say that the present occupants are trespassers and must be dealt with as such.”

Mr. Tovey had offered no reaction, but had simply stood and waited to hear what would follow. To interrupt with responses would only delay the denouement of the tale being told. “I shall,” his lordship continued, “conceal myself in some out-of-the-way place in the castle, unseen. Then, when I feel the appropriate time has come, I shall emerge and present myself—a figure in shadow but discernable by the light of a flickering candle.” He leaned closer and, his tone still confidential, whispered, “Wonderfully imaginative, don't you think? The flickering candle?”

Reverting to his more normal speech, he continued the narrative, his reptilian pleasure intensifying with each word. It was quite possible that this intensity would lead him into an ecstasy where speech would no longer be possible, but, unheeding, he went on. “There, by candlelight, I will appear, moving slowly as befits a ghost wandering through the castle wrongfully denied his descendant, the current Lord Shaftoe, I myself, no less. Mr. and Mrs. Sweeney will know at once that they are living among the restless dead, subject to a haunting that must, by its nature, stop the blood and halt the breath. They will be terrified. After all, the last thing they expect to see is a ghost. Am I not right?”

Mr. Tovey took this into consideration, then nodded his understanding of the horror to which the trespassers would be subjected.

“They will cry out! They will beg at the sight of me for relief from this shattering vision. I shall move through the room, slowly, not hearing their plaintive pleadings. They will cling to each other, so appalled by the knowledge that the castle they have appropriated will, from this time forward, offer them no peace. Their lives will be subject to disruption at the pleasure of a phantom, a phenomenon to which they could never adjust, as could no one in his right mind.

“The triumph will be mine. They will flee the castle, most likely that very night, and seek refuge in the first wayside cottage that will admit them. They will be distraught and wild, unable to explain their random arrival, with speech no longer available to them, so affrighted will they be by the presence of the very person they were convinced had no such powers to come among them at will, a person indifferent to their fears, scornful of their entreaties.

“You yourself, Mr. Tovey, can readily appreciate their consternation. Here you are, a man of considerable intelligence, not accustomed to seeing apparitions, until one appears, as if alive, there—there—there! See how he moves! He has come to bear you away to torments not yet imagined by the human mind. Oh, delicious, delicious! That there will be soilings I am quite sure. I mean, they
are
seeing a ghost. And the one they dread most: Lord Shaftoe himself, come from those celestial regions his nobility had guaranteed. But here's the rub. He
will
return—and claim again the domain given him by a monarch himself invested with divinity and thereby having acted with godly assent.

“Oh, how I wish you could be there, Mr. Tovey! Except you would howl with laughter at their inability to deal with the horror—and that would, of course, disrupt the scene. So you must, under no circumstances, intrude. Do you promise me that?”

For the first time, Declan spoke. “You have my promise. I will be nowhere near.”

“Ah, the promise of a gentleman. One can't ask for better than that, eh, Tovey?”

Mr. Tovey, in his wisdom, realized no response was necessary. His lordship, in the throes of a helpless euphoria, climaxed and concluded his narrative. “The vacated, abandoned castle will then become mine. And there will be no ghosts to disturb the joy that will reign supreme. Of that I can assure you. Would it be convenient if we set a date for Saturday week?”