Edith, page 5
‘But what’s to happen to us meanwhile? We’ll be sitting ducks.’
‘What use is one gun or even two against a gang of men? Look, we can’t protect the house indefinitely from them. Let’s make the best of it, wait for them to come to us and give them some of what they want. If we co-operate, maybe they’ll leave us alone.’
‘Feed a crocodile and it always returns for more.’
‘We don’t have much choice. These are lawless times. The police can’t defend us. Nor can the Tans. We must look to ourselves. What’s the loss of a few possessions compared with keeping Drishane safe? If we get on the wrong side of the rebels, they’re capable of torching the house out of spite.’
‘You seem rattled, old girl.’
‘That’s because I am. We’re powerless against them, Cam. The Somerville name means nothing to a flying column. I say let them in, be polite, give them a few odds and ends to keep them satisfied. Food, a couple of saddles, a horse if we must, some paste jewellery to sell on – they won’t be able to tell it from the real thing.’
‘Ever the pragmatist, Peg.’
Why must he be so obtuse? She reels in her exasperation. ‘Do you have anything on the premises you shouldn’t? Other than guns, I mean?’
‘Not a thing.’
‘Nothing at all? They’ll come back if they think we’re holding out on them.’
‘Well, I might have something.’
‘What? Cameron, what have you got? Tell me!’ ‘Some sovereigns. In my study, in the desk.’
With creditors unpaid? Edith is thunderstruck. But now is no time to challenge him about his stash. ‘Lodge them in the bank when you go to the RIC with your gun. No matter how banjaxed the roads, you must get through to Skibbereen. I don’t have any cash but I’d hate to lose Mama’s jewellery. I’ll wrap it up now. When you’re in the bank, ask the manager to store it in his safe for me. Oh, and it would be a good idea to hold back a sovereign or two. Something to give the rebels.’
He rubs the stubble on his chin. ‘By George, that’s not a bad plan you’ve cooked up, old thing. Give a little, to make them think we bear no ill will. It’ll buy us time until the rabble is routed.’
Edith isn’t convinced these guerrilla fighters who call themselves soldiers in the Irish Republican Army will be beaten. They don’t play by any of the rules of war her soldiering brothers understand. Her thumb pad strokes the gold Claddagh ring given to her by Martin, worn in her memory on her ring finger.‘So you’ll go to Skib today with your revolver and Mama’s jewels?’
‘I’ll go. But there’s one thing that’s staying in Drishane, whatever you say. Grandpapa’s regimental sword.’
‘I’ve heard of them taking those swords.’
‘I’m not surrendering it and that’s final! It’s a family heirloom. It’s hung on the wall since before either of us was born.The only time it was taken down was when we laid it on his coffin.’
She breathes in. Waits a beat. Looks contrite. Choose your battles. ‘Whatever you say, Chimp.’
Edith knows where her priority lies. Preventing Drishane from going up in smoke.
four
Edith stands beside Cameron on Drishane’s limestone steps, under the pillared front door with its arching skylight. Other houses may be tentatively placed, teetering apologetically in their settings, but Drishane is confident without being conspicuous. Its position welcomes in the countryside: open outlooks sweeping towards sheltering hills northwards, while to the south rears a craggy coastline with changeable seas.
A mass of foliage crowds the driveway, which curves down-wards to join the only road in and out of the village. It’s impossible to reach Castletownshend by road, or leave it by road, without passing the Somervilles’ gate. Sea routes are a different matter. At the end of the avenue stands the gatehouse, home to their gardener, Jeremiah O’Mahony. Beyond it, to the right, the village begins its downhill meander. Nowhere in Castletownshend is more than a ten-minute walk from Drishane.
Brother and sister watch Mike lead the horse and trap – which Cameron prefers to the smaller dogcart – around the side of the house, towards the front sweep of pathway. Cameron turns to Edith and taps a bulge in his breast pocket, indicating his army pistol. She nods, and casts a practised eye over the way Tara is conducting herself.
‘Madam here’s gentle as a lamb for now, but don’t be fooled. She’s ready to shy at anything and everything today. A child running out, a white gatepost she doesn’t like the look of, even a tree by the side of the road – she’ll bolt. You’ll need a firm hand on the reins or she’ll dance you into a ditch.’
Cameron buttons his driving gloves at the wrist. ‘Hold her there, Hurley. I’ll soon show her who’s boss if she acts up, Peg.’ He mounts the trap and cracks his whip in the air. The sound causes Tara to set off at a lively lick, the conveyance wobbling as it corners too fast.
Oh dear, thinks Edith. He needs to humour Tara, not behave like her commanding officer. ‘She’s still inclined to be jittery around motor-cycles,’ she shouts after him, but it’s unlikely he hears her.
Mike Hurley shrugs, as much as to say Cameron will have to find that out for himself, and returns to the stables.
Edith’s eyes stray across their land. Imagine having a deer park. But they need the fields for grazing. Tara jumps like a deer – it’s a pity neither she nor Cameron is capable of putting the mare over West Cork’s steep banks. Tempus fugit. She walks behind the ivy-covered house. Drishane isn’t showy. It’s built squarely of grey stone, well-proportioned and many windowed – elegant in its simplicity. Inside, there are smoky chimneys, dog hairs on the soft furnishings and holes blooming in the silk curtains. But the structure, undoubtedly, is a thing of beauty. As for the Atlantic setting, looking west by Cape Clear – it’s inspired.
The artist in her wonders about Drishane’s architect. His name must be listed on bills somewhere, but she doesn’t know it. Clearly, he was a man who understood the value of symmetry. Of course, Tom the Merchant, her several times great-grandfather (she loses count), who commissioned the house in the 1700s, had the wit to choose the right man for the job. That earlier Somerville had a fleet trading with the West Indies and Newfoundland in sugar, rum and wine. He made the family’s fortune. It’s been in descent ever since. What was it Shaw called them, last time cousin Charlotte brought her beloved to lunch? Downstarts. Just like himself, he claimed. An imp of a man, says what he likes and does it with a flourish.
Dooley yaps at a robin, which startles from a bush. Remembering his loyalty the previous night, she bends to pat his white bristles, with an extra stroke for the patch of autumn leaf above his eye. ‘My little shadow.’ As she straightens, a dart of sciatica jabs her right knee. A wooden leg would be a distinct improvement. By rights, she should sit with her feet up, but rest will have to wait its turn.
The smell of damp vegetation and fresh horse droppings signals the stables, where Mike is grooming Pilot with a curry comb. He nods at her but keeps going.
‘I’m a bit behind here, Miss Edith, a lick and a promise will have to do them today. But I had a good look round and nothing was taken last night.’
‘I wonder if some other house was their target instead?’ The repetitive motion of his hand is soothing, and she watches it for a few moments. ‘I dare say we’ll hear soon enough.’
Trumpeter is in a sulky mood and kicks at the wooden partition, flicking his tail. But Samson pokes his head over the top of his stall and whinnies, his warm breath reaching across to her, friendly as a wink.
‘Hello, old man. You never forget me.’ Edith produces a windfall apple from her pocket. With delicate precision, the dappled grey horse takes it between his teeth from the palm of her hand, and munches through it in a couple of bites. He nuzzles her hand in hopes of another. ‘That’s your lot. We had some high times together, didn’t we, Samson?’ Once the strongest of hunters, he’s now advanced in years and used for farm work.
On impulse, she takes down the hunting horn from its nail on the wall and blows. Samson pricks up his ears and neighs. Alarmed, Trumpeter and Pilot drum their hooves and snort.
‘Easy, boy.’ Mike pats Pilot, a smile lightening his solemn face. ‘You too, Trumpeter. Easy.’ Mike is not much past forty, but a life spent working in the open air has aged his skin.
Edith knots her fingers in Samson’s mane. ‘You’d like to be following the hounds, too, wouldn’t you, Samson? Those were the days! Nothing like the music of the horn to stir the blood.’
The highest compliment she ever received was an overheard one, from the groom before Mike. ‘Miss Edith spends more time on horse- back than she does in bed,’ he told a visitor’s manservant. But no longer.
She rests her forehead against Samson’s. Once, the stable yard was a beehive of activity, every stall occupied and half a dozen men from the village employed there. A place in the Drishane stables was prized by the locals. The hounds were kennelled nearby, and their yodelling and scrap- ping among one another fed into the rich soup of estate life. The kennels are silent now, even emptier than the stalls – the pack sold into Yorkshire.
Mike is the only one left to look after the stable’s four inhabitants. A phantom parade of horses rises to her mind: her first pony when she was three, first hunter in her teens – never has she felt more intensely alive than when on horseback, leading the chase. The joy of those four-thirty morning starts when the world was new-minted: cannoning along with the wind at her back, grips spilling from her hair as she took a jump. She’ll never know such exultation again.
Edith shakes herself. Surrendering to nostalgia won’t safeguard the few horses left to her. ‘I wish we’d been able to sell some of the mounts, at least, Mike. They’ll be commandeered if we don’t watch out.’
‘Nothing’s selling these days, Miss Edith.’
‘I know. But if we don’t move them on, they’ll be taken by men who think they’re patriots. And maybe they are,’ she adds hastily. Mike’s never been a Sinn Féiner, but people who were never Sinn Féiners before have turned to the Irish independence party.
‘Ridden into the ground, then shot and ate. That’s what’ll happen the poor beasts,’ says Mike.
Edith purses her mouth, conveniently forgetting her own set’s habit of feeding horses to the hounds when they’ve outlived their usefulness, or broken legs and necks on the hunting field. She casts a critical eye over Pilot and Trumpeter, both as fat as butter from insufficient activity. If she could only mount a horse again, she’d exercise the devilment out of those two.
‘This pair are prime hunters, Mike. There must be some way to find buyers in England, even if Ireland’s in no mood for hunting these days. A lowish price would be better than nothing. A bird in the hand.’
‘How would you even get them to England, miss? Word’d get out. They’d be taken off the train in Cork or Limerick. Mick Collins’s boys are always in need of horses.’ Mike lifts Pilot’s hooves, one after another, and checks them. Between the second and third hoof, he says, ‘I might see if I can find a safe berth for them. Tide them over the winter. Sure, who knows how the lie of the land might be by springtime.’
‘Is there anywhere?’
‘There’s a farmer I know. Lives off the beaten track.’
She doesn’t answer, still wedded to the idea of selling the hunters. ‘I wouldn’t take all day making my mind up, Miss Edith. Time’s not on your side.’
His frankness startles her. ‘He’s reliable, your friend?’
‘To the best of my knowledge. I don’t deny it’s a risk. But so is having them here, where the world and his wife knows the Somervilles keep decent horses.’ Mike straightens and meets Edith’s eye over Pilot’s back.
‘I suppose we should think about—’
‘I’ll ride over this morning.’ He slaps Pilot on the rump. ‘This boyo could use the exercise. It’ll take me a while, though – I’ll have to stay off the roads.’
‘This morning?’
‘No time like the present. I’ll ride Pilot and lead Trumpeter. When the fella I have in mind sees them, he might maybe be minded to give the pair of them a home for the duration. He’s a horse fancier like his father before him. He wouldn’t want to see good horseflesh put at risk. They could easy take a bullet, the places them flying columns would take them.’
Edith hesitates. It’s unlike Mike Hurley to be so insistent. Does he know something she doesn’t? ‘You mean leave them with him today?’
‘It’s for the best.’
She swallows. ‘All right, Mike. If you say so. What about Tara and Samson?’
‘You can’t be without her ladyship for getting about. And Samson is handy for farm work.’
She’s relieved about Tara. Without the mare, she can only go as far as these crocked legs will carry her, which is no distance at all. ‘I’ll give you something to cover their board and lodgings if your friend is willing to take them in. There’ll be feed to buy over the winter.’
Mentally, she retrieves two sovereigns from Cameron’s hoard. Just before leaving for Skibbereen, he stashed some coins. They discussed safe places, and ended up loosening a hat lining and placing the money inside it. The boater is hidden in the ancient wooden settle in the inner hall.
Samson blows through his nose, as though aware he’s being discussed. Edith scratches his ears. ‘You’re solid gold, old fellow. We had some times of it, didn’t we?’
‘You could mount a child of two on him and he’d be as gentle as a lamb. Not like the other one, she’s a contrary lady. But still and all, she’s a well-made specimen with plenty of jizz. Your friend beyond in England, Dr Smyth, took quite a shine to her. Called her Tara-go-round-the-chimney-pots.’
‘Tara likes to jump. Especially when you least expect it.’
Edith’s mind starts to tick. Ethel Smyth is well-connected. She has neighbours and associates in Surrey who appreciate horseflesh. Could she help her to sell Pilot and Trumpeter? She’s still reluctant to trust them to a stranger, who may or may not return them to her. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. There must be some way to ship the horses to England. Perhaps if she found a buyer she could arrange safe passage for the animals. Pay off someone, if necessary.
Yes, that’s what she’ll do: write and ask Ethel Smyth to make inquiries about buyers. If only she’d thought of it before Cameron set off – he could have posted the letter in Skibbereen. But there’s always a chance Timmy the Post will manoeuvre his bicycle through to them. He lifts it over barbed wire and steers it around potholes in the road. Ireland still produces some people determined to do their duty. Although his diligence may be due to family feeling. As a nephew of their cook’s, he’s always inclined to go the extra mile to reach Drishane, where he can be sure of a mug of sweet tea and slice of apple tart the size of a cartwheel.
Except she can never be certain about his comings and goings, and she really shouldn’t delay selling the horses. She chews her lip, and decides to send a letter via the destroyer in Castlehaven Bay, lying in wait to respond to possible emergencies. Her brother, Hugh, told her she could use it for important communications. All she has to do is ask the coast- guard to signal, and the captain will despatch a boat to the quay. Hugh is naval commander at Queenstown – it was his idea to send the destroyer from Haulbowline in Cork harbour, ready to protect His Majesty’s loyal citizens if things turned hairy. A signal arrangement has been put in place. If she waves a red lamp from one of the top windows, fifty crew members will spring into action to evacuate her and Cameron. It’s a comfort, of course. But she doesn’t want to withdraw from Drishane. It may not be possible to return.
Ethel Smyth – Boney – is her closest friend. Ever since girlhood, Edith has needed an intimate friend. One particular soulmate to whom she can lay herself bare emotionally, sharing her innermost thoughts. There have been several, but none became a bosom friend on the same level as her dearest Martin. Boney comes closest – although there are times when she is fonder of Boney from a distance.
The notion of an intermediary who might sell her horses cheers Edith as she goes indoors, towards the panelled oak settle that’s sat there forever. Or at least since the days of Tom the Merchant. From inside the seat, she extracts a hat, pokes open the lining and squeezes out a couple of sovereigns. She considers nesting there to write her letter because it always looks welcoming, with flowering plants carved on its upright back and ‘Reste and Bee Thankful’ inscribed on an upright panel. But appearances are deceptive.Wood offers no kindness to sore bones. Edith goes to the breakfast room to compose her missive. She must strike the right note. Not desperate to sell, frightened for Drishane’s future – but expectant that a friend will do her a favour, if at all possible.
Drishane House
6 October 1921
My dear Boney,
I know I sometimes brandish that eminently sensible quote at you, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,’ but foolishness or angelic wisdom has overtaken me. One or the other.We shall see. I’m knee-deep in a project which excites me more than anything I’ve attempted since Martin passed beyond the veil. I’m adapting some of our Irish R.M. stories for the theatre. I can’t tell you how elevated I feel working on this material. Naturally, it is a labour of love. Nevertheless, I’m hoping virtue won’t be my only reward and the project will reap shekels galore for my sorely depleted coffers.
This is a long-winded way of saying, dear Ethel, that I can’t possi- bly leave Drishane until after Christmas.The play must take priority. In the meantime, you are most welcome to visit Castletownshend if you feel like a break fromWoking, although I should warn you that this part of Cork continues to bear the brunt of the fighting.There is precious little sign of any ceasefire here.The post, trains and banks are all being held up and robbed ‘for the cause’ – where there is anything to steal. Houses, too, are being raided by armed men. I dare say it’s only a matter of time before we are their target here in Drishane.
