Another Heartbeat in the House (26 page)

Dear Jameson,

I am now quite set-up and comfortable in my house.

Thank you for the pony and jingle, in which I trot decorously up and down hills and through dales, and for the view, which changes every day.

I shall expect you on Thursday.

Eliza Drury

THE NEXT MORNING
Edie was on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor when a knock came to the front door. Milo at her heels, she hurried along the corridor, untying her pinafore as she went. Before she answered the knock, she divested herself of her headscarf, and smoothed her hair with an automatic hand.

The man at the door was tall, dark and Greek-god handsome, which Edie had most certainly not been expecting. She rather wished she had spent more time on her own appearance than that of the house, and that she had had a bath instead of her usual cursory wash.

‘Good morning,' she said. ‘You must be Mr O'Brien.'

‘Good morning.'

‘I didn't hear an automobile – you took me rather by surprise.'

‘I left it below at the jetty,' he said, ‘and went for a walk along the lakeside.'

Edie dimpled a little. ‘It's beautiful, don't you think?'

‘I suppose it is. I was keen to assess the potential.'

‘You're a fisherman, then?'

‘In a manner of speaking.'

‘That fish up there,' she said, indicating the stuffed salmon in its glass case, ‘was caught by my uncle.'

He narrowed his eyes, as if doing mental calculations. ‘A seventeen-pounder, I'd say.'

‘Yes – I think that's what he said it weighed.'

‘I'd like to think there were plenty more fellows like him dangling about down there.'

Mr O'Brien gave a smile so devoid of charm that Edie instantly decided she didn't like him after all and wouldn't offer him a cup of tea. He might resemble a Greek god, but his manners were more like those of a troll.

‘Shall we get going?' she suggested.

He gave her a hard-nosed look. ‘I don't need you to show me around thanks, Miss,' he said. ‘I'd prefer to do it under my own steam.'

Please yourself, Edie wanted to say, but didn't. Instead she said, ‘Take all the time you want. If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen.'

‘I shan't need you,' he said, and started up the staircase, taking the treads two at a time.

Edie glowered at his retreating back, hoping to see him stumble on a step, but he ascended as if he had wings on his feet, like Mercury on a mission.

Heading back towards the kitchen to resume her skivvying, she saw that the light streaming in through the open half-door at the end of the corridor resembled a golden pathway, beckoning her outside. Damn it! She wasn't going to get down on her hands and knees and scrub floors for the benefit of a berk like Mr O'Brien. She'd go outside and take her ease in the sun as the original chateleine had done on her first visit to Lissaguirra, and dabble her toes in the stream. Detouring via the library to help herself to another tranche of Eliza's manuscript, and the kitchen to help herself to an apple, she settled down on the smooth, sun-warmed rock, pulled off her plimsolls, and began to read.

A supper of salmon trout with parsley-and-butter and new potatoes was awaiting St Leger upon his arrival. The table was laid with a damask half-cloth, upon which a jug of yellow irises had been set. I had decanted a fine burgundy into an elegant carafe clasped around with beaten silverwork, and dressed myself in the green tabinet gown given to me by Mrs O'Dowd which had, until now, been too big for me. The evening sun bathed the dining room in a roseate glow (the effect enhanced by the wallpaper I had picked out, patterned in hues of plum and apricot), a log fire burned redundantly, and beyond the open window my blackbird sang lustily.

‘Well, Bastet,' he said when he had finished (he called me that sometimes, as he had promised he would, after the great Egyptian cat goddess. In return, I called him my flea). ‘You have hired yourself an excellent cook. And the maid seems competent.'

She had served us earlier, with rather more efficiency than finesse.

‘I did not hire either,' I told him. ‘Your steward got them at the hiring fair. If I had had my way, I would have chosen my own staff.'

‘Why? Do you think you could have done better than Christy?'

‘No. He has chosen well; they are both more than capable. But had I known there were people living in the village beyond the lake who are in desperate need of work, I would have taken them on instead.'

‘You have been there?'

‘I drove there last week.'

‘On your own?'

‘Of course. I have scant need of a chaperone, Jamey.'

‘I will not have you go there, Eliza. It is no place for a gentlewoman.'

‘There are no cut-throats in these parts,' I scoffed. ‘The Irish seem to me to be a peculiarly sanguine race, though I wonder at their stoicism, for this is a country ripe for revolution. The people make the sans-culottes look privileged.'

St Leger threw aside his napkin. ‘Don't think you can distract me with talk of politics. I say, I will not have you go there in your condition.'

‘I have heard that a daily rattle in a bouncing carriage, seven or eight miles along a jumbling road is excellent for both the mother and the child.'

‘What madman told you that?'

‘It is said to make childbirth easier.'

‘I will not hear of it, Eliza! Besides, the houses in Aill na Coill are unsanitary and –'

‘You call them houses? They are
hovels
! And why are they unsanitary? Why does Lord Abingdon not take better care of his tenants?'

‘That is not my business, Eliza. I purchased this land from him for the fishing. You are well set up here, and I would thank you to keep your mouth shut about things that don't concern you, and allow me to advise you about things that do.' He stood up and moved to the window. ‘By going to that pestilent place you are not putting solely yourself at risk, you are endangering our son.'

Our
son? It felt oddly gratifying to hear him use the possessive plural: heretofore he had referred to the child only as his. I gave him a fond look. His back was to me, his shoulders braced defensively, and I felt a pang of contrition. He was right: I had no business hectoring him, for it was Lord Abingdon, not he, who was to blame for the squalid conditions in which those poor creatures beyond the lake strove to survive. I resolved instead to confine my disquietude to the pages of my journal, in which I wrote every day, sitting at the rosewood escritoire I had bragged about to William.

I reached for the decanter, poured wine, and joined St Leger by the window. ‘Look at my charming garden,' I said, handing him a glass. ‘I have instructed Christy to have the beds planted with roses and lupins, and I want a laburnum, for its golden flowers.'

‘You should have a hawthorn for the May blossom. The blossom around Dromamore gladdens my heart at springtime.'

‘Dromamore?'

‘My Irish seat. My great-grandfather built it.'

‘Is it a grand house?'

‘Not so grand as Doneraile Court, but I was born there and I have an affection for it.'

‘How much land is attached?'

‘Ten thousand acres.'

‘Ten thousand! And here am I puffed with pride for my two acres of garden.'

‘Two acres will keep you busy enough. Tell me more of your plans.'

I linked his arm and intertwined my fingers with his.

‘There will be paths along the borders – see where they have been marked out? – and an orchard. Imagine! We shall be able to pick apples and pears and plums straight from the branches. And there'll be an arbour there, where you can sit and watch the sun go down over the lake when you come back after a day's fishing.'

‘I'll need to get the boat seen to.'

‘I'll ask Christy to attend to it.'

‘What did he do with my gear?'

‘It's safely stowed in the boathouse below. I've asked him to build on an annexe.'

‘To the boathouse?'

‘Yes. He's had a word with your ghillie. Between them they'll have something dandy ready before the end of the year, so you'll have your own dedicated hideout down there by the lake, like Bonnie Prince Charlie.'

‘Bonnie Prince Charlie was a pederast.'

‘Very well – Rob Roy, then.'

‘Are you trying to outlaw me?'

‘No, no!' I protested, kissing him fondly. ‘It's a place for you to go when you have had enough of my company, for you know I will not let you be when you are here. Besides, you will distract me from my novel-writing.'

‘Only unattractive women write novels.'

‘Pray furnish me with examples.'

‘Maria Edgeworth. Jane Austen.'

‘Have you read either?'

‘No. Sophia has.'

‘And what makes you think they are unattractive women?'

‘They never married.'

‘Perhaps they chose not to. They could certainly afford not to marry, for they earned their own income.' I looked at him with some hauteur. ‘Bear in mind, Mr St Leger, that
I
am unmarried.'

‘You don't need to earn money, Eliza.'

‘Ah, but every gentlewoman needs a hobby, just as you gentlemen do. So when I am scribbling in my silly little notebooks, you can take yourself off to your boathouse and enjoy more manly pursuits.'

He looked uncertain.

‘Such as … looking through your telescope,' I essayed.

‘I don't have a telescope.'

‘I shall buy you one. And I shall wave at you from the dining-room window when it is time for dinner, and from my bedroom window when it's time for bed, and we shall both be perfectly happy. Now, come and let me show you what else I've done with your money.'

Together we embarked upon a tour of the house. Directly opposite the dining room a small lobby led to the new kitchen I had had built. A narrow staircase ascended to the servants' quarters above. The rooms were not yet finished, but for the time being it suited me to have no one living there. Until the baby was born I wanted to guard my privacy. I had arranged with the cook to come in from town twice a week with provender, and the maid came daily from the nearby farm where she lived.

‘Look at my beautiful floor!' I said to St Leger, as we passed along the downstairs passage, newly paved with quarry tiles. ‘See how painstaking the craftsmen were. I shall have no need of rugs here, for the pattern is too lovely to be covered up.' I led him into the double salon, the smaller half of which I used as a morning room. ‘Are not my skirting boards handsome? I should not have known that carpentry was such a skilled job until I saw the men at work.'

I showed him the carving I had asked the carpenter to make on the inside of the shutters: the date – 1841 – surmounted by an ace of spades and surrounded by a wreath of oak leaves. The ace symbolized the house, which was the pinnacle of my life's ambition so far (although I told St Leger that the ace stood for him, of course), and the leaves represented the sessile oaks that grew in the forest all around.

‘And see here, how smoothly my shutters work!' I drew them to, and apart again, and urged him to try them for himself. ‘And how slender the glazing bars on the windows!' I watched as he took in every detail of the room: from the stuccowork on the ceiling to the slate slabs surrounding the hearth. Registering his nod of approval, I smiled and prattled on. ‘I thought I might not have ordered enough wallpaper, but the paper man was clever. It fits to within a half-inch.'

The salon was papered in the same pattern as the dining room, but in a restful shade of eau de Nil – although the matching damask chaise upon which I planned to recline had not yet been delivered. Many of the items ordered in Cork had failed to arrive, and most of the rooms were but partly furnished. I had essentials – linen and plate, but no carpets; lamps, but no curtains. I yearned for books to line the library shelves and paintings to hang from the picture rails; I longed to see the garden grow, and for the scent of lilac and honeysuckle to fill my house, but in the meantime I needed to learn patience.