Tipperary (29 page)

“Who owns those creatures?”

“I suppose some neighbors have taken the liberty of using the land. This estate has not been in working ownership since—well, since whatever happened,” I reminded her. “Mr. Wilde's story.”

“So they graze the land free?”

I said that I supposed they did, yes.

“Hmm.” She sounded determined. Then she sat back and viewed the house. “The roof seems sound.”

“I believe it will need some work,” I said, and I pointed out some damage to an expanse of slates.

“Is it possible that we can get inside?”

April dismounted (without my help), and we walked to the front of the building on the south side. The great door, I knew, had iron bars and daunting locks on the inside. I looked here, I looked there, but no entry could I find.

“We seem blocked,” she said.

I took this as a test of my resolve and I stood back and surveyed.

“What are you doing?”

I said, “Mapping the building. Let me judge which rooms sit where.”

The most recent addition to the building began down to our left, on the southwestern side, and seemed almost a building unto itself. I knew that this must be the theater, and I remembered that, almost four years earlier, when I had first scrutinized this place, I'd believed that I had found it.

“Down here,” I said. “We may be lucky. In a few minutes, begin to call out.”

I climbed a tree near the theater's roof and looked down upon a flat surface. In the center two iron arms poked up, as of a ladder. I was able to step from the tree's strong branch onto the flat roof—and I found that it was, indeed, an iron ladder that led down to a doorway recess below the surface to the roof. The ladder seemed strong enough to hold me, and I came down to the door—which had no lock. Inside, further ladders, which I felt but never saw, led me down to a wider place; all was pitch-black.

On a firm floor I reached out a hand and touched velvet; I felt that I must have penetrated the theater itself—and it proved to be a seat, on the edge of an aisle. Yet my eyes picked out no shapes; I still could see nothing, but my hands found a wall and I edged along it until I came to a curtain. This cloaked a doorway—but it yielded not at all. On and on I went, around each wall, until I reached a point where I could hear April hallooing. At another curtain here, the door behind it opened easily, and now I had more than a glimmer of light. It came from a stained-glass panel in the ceiling, and I discovered that I stood in the hallway of the theater. Ahead of me stood the door, which was barred from the inside— but the bars had no locks securing them. When I opened the door the sunlight flooded in.

April came running to my shout and we opened all the other theater doors. Within moments we had a full view of the auditorium, on whose stage her own grandfather—if the legend was accurate—had died of apoplexy.

The world may boast greater theaters, but it has few as lovely. That velvet which I had touched had been made of a turquoise color, trimmed with a gold braid; and the seats in their neat and almost intimate rows— we counted that the auditorium accommodated one hundred—had been made of a gentler hue, almost the blue of a duck's egg, which excellently complemented the curtains and the other trim. Tiepolo himself, I reflected, might have painted the ceiling; it billowed with his soft blues and whites, and I subsequently learned that the painter, an Italian by name of Rampalli, had been commissioned to paint it after the fashion of Tiepolo.

We could not yet see the stage. The curtains, of gold with the same turquoise braided trim, had been drawn closed. Securing the curtains, in the very center, hung an aged object—and closer examination disclosed a long-dead funeral wreath. A card pinned to it said, simply, “Terence Burke
Requiescat in Pace.
”

Upon this discovery I called April over.

“Look. Perhaps some of the legend is true,” I said.

She said nothing but stared a long time at the remains of the wreath; and she turned the card with its black borders over and over in her hand. Then she asked, “Do you think it possible to enter the house?”

We tried and tried again. Two passages led from the theater, but each one ended at a door that had been secured from the other side, and no amount of tugging and heaving would take us through. When we finally ceased we returned to the theater and inspected every part of it.

It had been excellently appointed, and the stage and auditorium had been raked to perfect angles. I found the winches that operated the curtains, and now we could see how it was meant to be when a play was being staged. No scenery could we find, not a painted fly, not a sculpted backdrop of “pillars” or “columns,” and we made our way backstage.

Here we found three large rooms, marked, “Green Room,” “Ladies' Dressing-Room,” and “Gentlemen's Dressing-Room,” and two smaller rooms. The first of these said, “Principal Actor”—and the second said, “Mrs. Burke.” We stood in front of this and I thought of Mr. Wilde and his description; I can still recall the words: “She had a long nose, not so retroussé as yours, not so tip-tilted, and with not the same curve at the end of the nostrils. Her lips had some but not all of your voluptuousness. And she had your smile, a wonderful, curving slice of joy.”

“The case,” I murmured, “seems incontrovertible.”

She simply nodded; not a word did she say. Instead she opened the door of the dressing-room that only her grandmother would ever have used or entered. It was dark but surprisingly free of any musty odor. When I pressed the door to its widest we saw that some candles still sat in their sconces, and I lit them; to my surprise, the wicks took.

This dressing-room had been furnished for an empress. A great looking-glass dominated one wall from the ceiling to the floor, and it had an answer from another large glass over the dressing-table across the room. I doubted that the room had ever been used; no brushes, combs, or other grooming implements stood on the dressing-table, no wig on the wooden block. But in a corner I saw some objects resting on a great chair, and I took hold of them—a lady's heavy green gown; a long and generally decorative green brocade coat with cream lapels and revers; a pair of broad brown-leather gauntlets, small enough for a lady; a small cloth bag which contained brown hair (a wig, I presumed); and a pair of lady's buttoned boots, also brown. Dust flew, and we coughed.

SUNDAY NIGHT, THE 2ND OF OCTOBER.

Charles and Miss Burke returned in time for a late luncheon. I prevailed upon the young lady that she need not change for the table. In the country, I said, we rest easier about such things. Perhaps she has gone back to England thinking us barbarians. I do not care. And I do not care for her. A cool young miss, indeed.

Beforehand, Bernard and I talked for an hour and more about our son's love affair. Bernard confesses that he is distressed. So am I. He says that he sees full well why Charles became infatuated. I said that I do not. Bernard said that if a woman so beautiful once turns her lamp upon a man, he is caught in its beam. I protested that it is such a cold beam. He said, “So is the moon's.”

Why do men like being thus fascinated? I have no patience with it. It distracts from the work of Life. It preys upon the spirit of the innocent—like Charles. But what am I to do? I told Bernard that I shall wait and watch—for the moment. But I do not promise to keep silent or distant if I see that she plays with Charles too much like cat with mouse.

She is such an icy one! I might have thought that she would return from such an important adventure with some imprint of excitement upon her face. Instead, she sat to table as cool as a leaf. Bernard asked her opinion of the house and estate—which is easily the finest for many miles around. “Quite pleasing,” said Miss B.

Quite pleasing, indeed! Here is my poor son turned inside out, from heat to harness, over this woman. Here is she with the likelihood to become one of the wealthiest landowners in the county by neither strength nor effort. And all she can say is “Quite pleasing.”

I fear that I pressed her.

“We found the theater,” she said. Then I learned that Charles had found it, by dint of enterprise and imagination. But she joined in the claim. Is that what she is? A claimer? She shall not claim my son until and unless she can prove to me that she has a heart worthy of his.

I watched her closely. Her hands are bony and will age badly. So might she. She eats not at all—a pick here, a morsel there. So she is not generous even to herself? Nor did she give much to me, when I asked her questions about her ride over to Tipperary Castle. Is it not a fine place? How did you like the land? Did you observe how beautifully the stone is cut? “Oh, yes,” and “It's agreeable,” and “I know little about stone.”

At that moment I wished that I had not reared my sons to behave elegantly toward women.

During the meal a visitor came. We have a long view of the avenue from the terrace. It is a courtesy in the country to ride slowly into another's property. This newcomer knew of such manners and trotted his horse nicely.

Bernard did not know him, nor did I—nor did Charles nor Euclid, and they know everybody. He came close to the terrace and dismounted without speaking. He took off his hat and approached us—thickset, short, and black-haired.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he said. The coat he wore might have been Spanish. “And forgive a business mission on the Sabbath Day.”

“Your courtesy forgives you, sir,” said Bernard. He can be irksomely florid at times.

We invited the man to join us. He told us that his name was Dermot Noonan. We shall hear more of him. He came to inquire whether we knew that somebody was trying to claim Tipperary Castle.

That was when I understood the wideness and depth of Miss Burke's nerve. She never moved a particle of her body.

Bernard asked the stranger why he inquired.

“I believe it should belong to the people,” said this Mr. Noonan. “It's been vacant a long time. It should revert to its neighbors; it was our land once. All of us from around here.”

Euclid's eyes grew round, a sight I always enjoy. And Charles's occasional shrewdness kept him silent too. Mr. Noonan had a hardness to him.

“Where do you come from?” I asked him.

“I was educated at Salamanca, Mrs. O'Brien.”

Few people around here have the composure to call me that; “ma'am” or, more commonly, “Missus” is what they call me.

“And why are you here?”

“I am riding to all the local houses to tell of my intention to go to court over that estate”—and he gestured past his shoulder.

He took a drink, asked many questions, and gave few answers. But at least he told us that he was a lawyer. (Bernard said that he should “try and get that cured.”) During the time he was among us this Mr. Noonan began to fasten upon Miss Burke. And she upon him. I know that I saw warning signs, threats to my son's heart.

What will come of this? And why did Mr. Noonan stop here? Had he heard of her mission? Their eyes locked together many times. She is just the sort of woman to be enticed by a man such as that.

When we returned to our horses where they grazed, April continued to look around. I waited while she enjoyed the view; in my hands I carried the green dress, the brocade coat, the pretty gauntlets, the cloth bag with the wig, and the buttoned boots. She looked at them and asked, “Do you think they were a stage costume? Or her actual clothes?”

We laid them on the grass and opened them tenderly. No clue could be found, not a note, not a ribbon; no powder marks on the coat's collar, nothing but the faintest—or did I imagine it?—perfume from the hair. The shoes contained nothing; nor did the gloves.

Looking almost merry, April first tried the gauntlets, and they slid onto her hands with only a little effort.

“Excellent leather,” she said and slapped the gloves together.

I knelt to help with the boots, but they proved too small. Then I opened out the coat and she put it on. It looked splendid on her, and I told her so.

“Where is there a glass?”

At my suggestion she went to look in the water of the lake at the bottom of the hill while I stayed with the horses. They had become restive since our return; even Della stomped and shook, unusual behavior. I watched as April twisted and turned, trying to create a reflection in the water that would give her an idea of how she looked. She came back up the slope, red of cheek and merry of face, and to my astonishment she took my hand.