Tipperary (72 page)

Saturday, the 3rd of March 1923

The moon is full and shining through the window, and I am about to go downstairs and dine with you. Remind me to write to Boyds and correct the seeds order for the kitchen garden. Shall you want to change the order of growths in the herbaceous areas? I recall you saying last year that you felt they wanted more reds, that you had indulged too much in your favored yellows.

Sunday, the 4th of March 1923

O'Brien! Where are you? Are you walking the herbaceous borders? Did you see how shy Mr. Tracey (is this how he spells his name?) became when he saw us stand together? Veterinary Surgeons have the gentlest hearts; you should have been a Vet.

Monday, the 5th of March 1923

Beloved girl—to repeat and explain: you cannot, in my opinion, put the beehives too close to the gardens or the herbaceous borders. Bees need room.

Nor should we bring an entire litter into the house. The sow will miss them. Can you put them all back, please—except the runt, who needs nursing. And why did you get up so early this morning? I missed you when I awoke.

Tuesday, the 6th of March 1923

O'Brien, dearest O'Brien—you are the healer among us. Every bone in my body has rested. Whoever our Creator is—we must declare and acknowledge his cleverness.

Saturday, the 19th of May 1923

Beloved girl, if we suspect that this is a swine fever, we must act immediately. I cannot think that your “pink creatures,” as you call them, must be allowed to suffer, and then infect each other. Do you wish me to get a second opinion? Mr. Tracey is very sound, and will come here as often as we wish.

Last night you began to talk a little of the day we met at Mr. Wilde's. If you can bear it, tell me more, and my heart shall be easier. That was a difficult time in my life, when I took great missteps.

And shall we again retire early?

Sunday, the 20th of May 1923

Perhaps I should earlier have raised the matter of Mr. Wilde. I think I have been too ashamed of my later behavior to find the courage. In those days I was frightened of everyone, and most afraid of all that my life would be disrupted so greatly that I could not care for Papa.

Here is what I saw, followed by what I knew. Dr. Tucker— who, even though he took a wrong view of you, had many good qualities—sensing my fear of the world, told me once that most people get by when they merely watch and do not act. As I had set myself to do. In the room, I had not seen you, but I knew from Dr. Tucker's talk that your healing matters were not going well. You were not to know that in the view of all France's doctors (or so it seemed, to judge from those who called upon Dr. Tucker) Mr. Wilde was beyond assistance.

I suffered grave consternation when he told the tale of my grandmother. For many years, we had lived under the shame of her courtesanship, and Papa knew of many men whose acquaintance she had made. When Mr. Wilde began to tell us of her, I thought that I must die—even though I had begged him to. If you recollect, I sat perfectly still. But when, after the funeral, you raised the question of the estate, I felt the chill of fear—for Papa, for me, that our secrets should be told. Foolish, I know, but there it was.

Monday, the 21st of May 1923

Thank you, my love. I am helped, and the years are eased by your kind information.

Can you make a decision soon as to how many different root crops you shall want for this year's kitchens? Shall you want yellow (as distinct from little white) turnip?

Tuesday, the 22nd of May 1923

Papa worried that, in his words, I had “never been a girl”—meaning that I was never wooed, nor did I dance where young men danced, nor enjoy the pleasures of pursuit. He must be happy now, wherever he is.

Wednesday, the 23rd of May 1923

If I have been the agent of your freeing from cares, I am the most pleased man on Earth.

I thought that we would lose every pig, and every sow and every litter. Mr. Tracey said as he departed, “Big heart, big care; small heart, puny care.” He was speaking of you.

Friday, the 29th of June 1923

Beloved April, why should you have to gather by yourself? Unless, of course, you need to—but we have maids and servant-maids who can competently take baskets and collect every petal that has blown. I am irked that the wind so blustered the roses, but I looked again this afternoon and saw that we have many tight buds yet to open themselves, so fear not for your vases.

I never told you this: when you came to Ardobreen the first time, my room lay near yours and I could not sleep, and so I wandered in and then left in fear lest you wake and be distressed.

Saturday, the 30th of June 1923

It is my turn to scold. Being short of breath cannot be good. Dr. Costigan will come tomorrow, and that's an end of it. Harney agrees with me. I wish he would stay here more often, and I fear for him. Why does he not stay here?

Saturday, the 7th of July 1923

My darling O'Brien, you are excused your last reply, and the reply to this. I trust Dr. Costigan as you trust Mr. Tracey—or would you prefer that the Vet became your physician? And why not? You have the heart of a lion and the hug of a bear—though about the care of yourself you are less sensible than my pink creatures.

I think that Dr. Costigan spoke more plainly to me than to you. He believes that your body is trying to rest. I told him something of our last two or three years, and he professed amazement that you had not come down low before.

Thursday, the 26th of July 1923

Beloved girl, where are you? I've searched the house for you; neither are you in Major or Minor. The day being so hot, I shall lie down and rest for some time. It's four o'clock.

Friday, the 27th of July 1923

If you find this in your letters box before it is time to dine, let us walk out and look at Horace. The men placed him in the nearest pastures, and I swear that they chose the prettiest cows for him.

When I had read as far as July 1923, I myself had to take a rest. I reeled back in heated contemplation. Notwithstanding the reticence of the times, even between husband and wife, the relationship was plain.

How often in his “History” had Charles expressed his longing for this girl? And how often had I sympathized with him? And silently agreed with those who told him that she was a losing bet?

It appears that she wasn't. Neither of them wrote for show or for other eyes. The letters are unaffected and unpretentious, the letters of two people who, although still in the early heat of marriage, are also getting on with their lives, with all the natural worries of any couple. Some are even explicit, but their privacy should be respected.

I liked how the age difference of twenty-two years came across. He is steady, almost sober, though, as ever, desperately passionate. And she is closer to skittish, livelier, though still with an ingrained sense of responsibility.

In my respite from them, I rooted around in the suitcase, and that is how I found Amelia O'Brien's journal. Odd, now, to read again her descriptions of April as “icy” and “conniving.”

Perhaps Amelia, impressive and likable though she was, can't have been as wonderful at judging character as she was at running the family. After all, her own husband was for several years involved in a conspiracy that could have killed their son.

I also found an envelope in the suitcase that had sealing wax on it— and, across the sealing wax, Joe Harney's signature. The seal had not been broken, and when I drew it to Marian's attention, she told me that she knew “all about it.”

“Is this to be opened?” I said.

“Not until you've read all the letters,” she said. “And as you can guess, those are my father's instructions, not some rule I made up.”

Laughing at this incentive, I continued reading. The mood of 1923 continued much as before, the mutual, sincere love and affection, with, in the more open expressions, strong hints at a powerful nocturnal life. Bit by bit, they record the arrival of other people in their lives. They discuss who came to dinner, and how many workmen to keep, whether the cook is getting too old, and how to drain and then refill the lake.

Throughout 1923 and early 1924, nothing unusual develops—apart from the fact that instead of waning, their passionate awareness of each other seems to intensify. In fact, in some periods of their lives, it begins to dominate their existence with the passage of time, rather than the typical converse.

The relationship begins to have almost a classical feeling to it. All passionate initiative seems to come from him, and is then matched by the force of her response. She evidently held the view that he was a man who needed to take the lead in all things, and that her place was to follow eagerly—that he might have been too delicate to accept a wife's advances.

In 1924, a change begins to appear. It happens slowly, and they refer to it over many weeks. A sense of fright enters the correspondence, and deep worry. In this, too, they match each other. It seems to be the case that they had reached such a plateau of mutual trust that neither would or could hide anxiety from the other.