The Tour (35 page)

‘Yes. I am.’ The same answer, but this time the smile was warmer.

THE HOUSE WAS SET
back from the road and was impressive in its size and architecture. While not a
château
by any standard, it still seemed to be a very large house for a couple to inhabit alone. It was built of a buttery stone with limestone edging, and, despite its grand size, appeared welcoming, with lights blazing in each window, promising a warm and inviting end to her long, tiring journey. The tree-lined avenue passed through gardens that were beautifully kept, even during their winter sleep. Large sections of the house front were covered with crimson and gold creeping ivy, and as they drew level with the large, bottle-green front door – the car’s wheels crunching on the gravel – Solange admired the blood-red Poinsettia spilling from pots in wild profusion on either side of the door. Perhaps Edith was a keen gardener. She hoped so, because she loved gardens too – it would give them something to talk about.

Richard opened the car door and offered her his arm to assist her out. Standing, she found she was stiff and sore, and suddenly longed for a bath and a good night’s sleep. As he opened the front door, a plump, matronly woman with iron-grey hair and a currant-bun face came hurrying from the back section of the house.

‘Dr Richard, you’re home! You’re as welcome as the flowers of May. Let me have a look at you! God in heaven, you’re skin and bone! We’ll have to feed you up. Oh, ‘tis wonderful to have you home, so it is. I can’t believe ‘tis two years since you set foot in Dunderrig. Wouldn’t your mother and father be just delighted to see you, God rest them, home safe and sound. They never stopped worrying about you, God be good to them.’ Tears filled the woman’s eyes.

Solange stood by as Richard put his arms around the grey-haired woman and held her tightly.

‘You were so good to them, Mrs Canty. My mother’s last letter told how much ye did to ease my poor father’s passing, and how skilful ye were at nursing her herself. I can’t believe she won’t be in the kitchen or he in his surgery ever again.’

He spoke quietly; their loss was shared. Mrs Canty was clearly much more than a housekeeper: more like one of the family. After a few minutes, he stepped back and indicated Solange.

‘Mrs Canty, this is Madame Solange Allingham, Jeremy’s wife.’

The woman hurried towards Solange, dabbing her eyes with the corner of her apron.

‘I beg your pardon, I didn’t see you there. What must you think of us at all? You are very welcome to Dunderrig, pet, and I’m sorry it’s only me here to greet ye. We didn’t know exactly when to expect you, you see. My Eddie is out and about somewhere, and Mrs Buckley is upstairs having a lie down. She’s been very out of sorts all day.’

She took Solange’s hand, while sadly shaking her head.

‘I remember your husband well – a lovely lad and no mistake. He was like a ray of sunshine around the place when he used to visit. Dr Richard’s mother, God rest her soul, used to knock a great kick out of him altogether – the antics and trick acting out of him! I was so sorry to hear he had been killed, and ye only a young couple starting out in your lives. ‘Twas a terrible thing that war. So many grand lads like Jeremy, gone forever.’

The woman spoke so quickly that Solange struggled to understand her – but she could tell enough to be moved by the kind way this woman spoke about her dead husband, and warmed to her at once.

‘Thank you Mrs Canty. Yes, my husband spoke often about the happy times he enjoyed in Ireland.’ Solange hoped her English was clear enough.

Whether Mrs Canty fully understood her or not, she seemed satisfied with Solange’s halting answer. ‘You’re very welcome here, especially now. God knows, with the new baby arriving any minute, we’ll be all up in the air soon. I’ll tell you Dr Richard, she’s not great at all today. I’ve been trying to get her to eat a bit all day long but she’s not having a bar of it. You’d think she’d be all excitement over having you home after all this time! Normally women get a bit of a boost just before, you know, getting things ready for the baby and all that but she just lies in bed, the only thing she’s interested in is writing letters...’

‘Thank you, Mrs Canty, that will be all.’

Both Richard and Mrs Canty turned with a start, and Solange followed their eyes to the top of the stairs from where the cold sharp voice had come.

‘It is perhaps not so inconceivable that I would not wish to eat, given the standard of cuisine in this house. Please attend to your duties.’

The haughty tone brooked no argument. A tall, blonde woman was descending the staircase which curved elegantly around the walls into the large square entrance hall. She was dressed in an ivory silk gown, over which she wore a contrasting coffee-coloured robe, and she moved remarkably gracefully, given the advanced stage of her pregnancy; despite the large bump, she was slender, almost thin. She looked pale and tired, but also something else. She seemed to exude distain, not just for the verbose Mrs Canty but for her entire surroundings. She certainly seemed to show no delight at the safe return of her husband.

‘Edith, you look wonderful, blooming. Mrs Canty was telling us you haven’t been well? It’s so good to see you.’ Richard crossed to the bottom of the stairs, offering his hand to assist her down the last few steps. She allowed him to take it, and turned a powdered cheek for him to kiss, but Solange could see her actions lacked enthusiasm. Richard must have noticed it too: having pecked his wife lightly, he released her limp fingers and retreated a few steps, looking around him, clearly searching for something else to say. His eyes alighted on Solange. ‘Edith, this is Solange Allingham, Jeremy’s wife.’

Edith Buckley heaved a huge sarcastic sigh, as she approached Solange. ‘Yes, Richard, I did gather who this was. You wrote to me several times to tell me she was coming, and it is not as if Dunderrig is such a hive of social activity that I would confuse the guests. Mrs Allingham, what on earth possessed you to leave France for this Godforsaken place?’

Uncertain how to respond, Solange silently extended her own hand, but Edith ignored it.

‘Oh well, you’re here now, so you will have to make the best of it. Presumably you will either expire from boredom or food poisoning, but if you are determined to take your chances... Oh, Mrs Canty, are you still here?’

Mrs Canty marched off furiously to the kitchen, saying loudly how someone had to prepare a ‘good, wholesome meal’ for the poor travellers. Richard seemed unsure what he should do next. He made to put his hand on his wife’s back but the look she gave him was so frosty, he changed his mind.

Solange hurried to lighten the mood. ‘Madame Buckley, I must thank you for inviting me into your home. Please believe me, after the past few years in France a quiet life is something I whole-heartedly desire, so do not be concerned I will be bored. Besides, when the new little one arrives it will be a very busy household. I hope to be of some service.’ She tried to infuse her voice with gratitude and friendliness, to bring some much-needed warmth into the situation.

Edith shrugged. ‘I suppose so. But I warn you, it will all seem deathly dull. I am sorry about your husband. Still, if countries insist on colonising smaller nations then war must be an inevitable outcome.’

Solange was nonplussed. Was Edith saying that Jeremy deserved to die because of the past decisions of English and French rulers? Surely she could not be so callous. She glanced at Richard, who had coloured with embarrassment.

Nonchalantly changing the subject, Edith addressed her husband: ‘Richard, please contact Dr Bateman to come out. I’m not feeling well and I need to consult him. I’m going back to bed. Welcome home. Please don’t disturb me until he arrives.’ She turned away.

Richard followed his wife across the hall to the foot of the sweeping stairs. ‘Perhaps it’s something I can help you with? It is rather a long way for Bateman to come...’

‘Richard,’ Edith said wearily, without looking back at him. ‘While I accept you are a doctor, you are not
my
doctor. You have been conspicuous by your absence throughout my confinement so it would be wholly inappropriate for you to involve yourself in my care at this late stage. Please contact Dr Bateman as soon as possible.’ Moving wearily but not slowly, she climbed the stairs.

‘Very well. If that’s what you want, then of course I’ll contact him – and then maybe we could have tea?’

Richard was almost pleading. But Edith had already disappeared into a room on the second floor, and his request was met with the closing of the door behind her. He turned anxiously to Solange.

‘She is very tired. And she is so devoted to the cause of Irish independence. She didn’t mean anything against poor Jeremy. Her opinions... She is not a supporter of the Allies. But of course, she doesn’t support the other side either. I’m afraid I have to leave you a moment to call Dr Bateman. Can you take a seat here, until Mrs Canty returns? She will see you to your room and feed you to within an inch of your life and hopefully you’ll start to feel normal again.’ Then he backtracked, as if worrying that he had sounded as crass as his wife: ‘I mean obviously not normal, not after everything, but maybe you can feel just a little better. Welcome to Dunderrig.’

While Solange waited for the housekeeper’s re-emergence, she studied her new surroundings. The entrance hall was warm and welcoming, in stark contrast to its mistress. It was as generously proportioned as any reception room and carpeted with a rich red and gold rug. The furniture – a hall stand, a writing table and chair, a loudly ticking grandfather clock and the upholstered chaise longue on which she had seated herself – were all highly polished. Oil paintings – landscapes and horses, mainly – adorned the silk-covered walls. The cantilevered staircase had a deep pile runner at its centre. A passageway led from the hall towards the back of the house. It was down this that Mrs Canty had disappeared and, based on the aromas of baking, it was connected to the kitchen. To her left and right were four large oak doors, also richly polished and all closed. Richard had gone through one of them into what was clearly a doctor’s surgery. Why had Edith insisted Richard call her a different doctor? If she, Solange, had been pregnant with Jeremy’s child, her husband would have been the only doctor she would have trusted to attend her.

She glanced up to the second floor. The mahogany banister became a small but ornate balcony for the rooms above, all the doors of which opened out onto the landing. The effect meant the entranceway felt like stage and the upper gallery the viewing point. Solange felt exposed and wished that Mrs Canty would re-appear. She dreaded the possibility of Edith’s return.

‘Ah Lord, did he leave you here all on your own? Where’s he gone to, in the name of God? I don’t know what’s happening to everyone in this house, honest to God, I don’t. God knows, in the mistress’s time, Mrs Buckley now, I mean old Mrs Buckley, Dr Richard’s mother, no visitor would have been left alone in the hall, but I don’t know, things are very different around here these days. Poor Dr Richard, home after that terrible war and you’d think his wife would be happy to see him anyway.’

The housekeeper’s voice dropped to a whisper as she pointed theatrically upwards, while ushering Solange down the passageway into the kitchen.

‘She’s a bit of a handful, and she can be very cutting when she wants to be. Poor old Dr Buckley and the mistress, God be good to them, nearly drove themselves cracked trying to please her but the day young Dr Richard left her here in Dunderrig while he went off to the war was a sad day for this house. At first he’d taken work in Dublin to please her, but he couldn’t rest easy when he heard from your husband about all the terrible goings-on at the front, and in the end nothing would satisfy him but to follow Jeremy to France. He thought his wife would understand how she would be better off waiting for him in Dunderrig, and maybe look after his parents for him. But she stayed above in her room with a face that’d turn milk sour. Sure, even when the poor doctor got the flu earlier this year and we lost him, and the mistress less than a week later, not a budge out of herself above! And there were never two kinder people, God rest them. They were lovely, lovely people. I know she’s from Dublin and not used to life in the country, but she’s stuck in something to do with the rising and all that nonsense. Her father was some kind of a bigwig professor in the college up there, and he knew them all, Pearse and Yeats and all of them. We’re not fancy enough at all for her, to my way of thinking. Sure, she just writes letters all day and gets letters back too. I don’t know who they’re from but ‘tisn’t right for a married woman to be going on with that kind of thing. Though I keep my own counsel, because of course Dr Richard won’t hear a word against her. He was forever writing to us to make sure she was all right and what have you, and Mrs Buckley decided he had enough to worry about over there so she told him ‘twas all grand, but I’d say he got a bit of a land when he met her above in Dublin. Though she came back expecting, so I suppose they must have worked it out some kind of a way.’ She softened, and chuckled.

Solange found herself standing in the middle of a warm, cosy kitchen that looked out onto a cobbled courtyard. The stones shone in the wet twilight of a winter’s day.

‘Now you poor misfortune, you must be perished alive after sitting in that car for so long. My husband Eddie – he does the gardens, you see, and a bit of fetching and carrying around the house – he drove it down to the boat yesterday and got the train and bus back so ‘twould be there for ye when ye got off the boat, and he said it was cosier on the train by far. Sit down there, let you, and I’ll get you a bowl of soup to warm your bones. Were you ever here in Ireland before?’

Mrs Canty’s patter was so like a babbling brook – comforting and restful, whatever its content – it took Solange a second to realise she had been asked a question.

‘In Ireland?
Jamais
… I mean: No, never. Jeremy always said he would bring me here, when the war was over but... Well, that was not meant to be.’ Solange tried to recover but Mrs Canty noticed the break in her voice. Turning from the large range she crossed the floor and took Solange by surprise by enveloping her in a warm hug.