The Blood Upon the Rose (40 page)

She confronted him at dinner. They sat together at a polished table in the smaller family dining room. Oil lamps hissed in the corners of the room, and a fire crackled in the hearth. Occasional gusts of wind rattled the windows and sent draughts stirring the curtains. The butler came in to serve the soup.

When they were alone Catherine said: ‘You seem to have made yourself at home here.’

‘It’s like Ardmore, only larger. Your father has chosen good staff.’ He sipped his soup. ‘Why are you so angry about it?’

‘Because it’s my home and you have no place in it.’

It hurt. He had been fascinated by their sparring at their last meeting, and had been glad when her father had rung to say she would be coming down. He hoped she might feel the same. He had made some efforts to make her arrival pleasant. There was more to it for Andrew than the relief of boredom. He thought of her, quite coolly, as the first girl he had met who had both enough fire in her belly to satisfy him and enough money to rebuild Ardmore.

He saw himself as breaking in a young filly. He must expect kicks; he must not allow her to get away with them. He said: ‘I don’t bite, you know. Besides, I don't have a home of my own.’

‘That’s not my fault.’

‘No. But it’s no reason to start throwing your father’s guests out. Or have you seen the light, and decided to evict all your tenants when you’re mistress here?’

Catherine flushed. There was a knowing grin on his face which enraged her. ‘Have you been talking to Ferguson about me?’

‘He did say you had a disagreement a few years ago, yes.’

‘Well, I hope he told you that he was wrong! It was Ferguson who wanted to evict the tenants then - I never shall! All that man ever thinks of is cattle, rents, and profit.’

‘Which have made people like you very rich. And me, I once thought. Don’t despise your servants, Catherine.’

At this point the butler came in with two housemaids to clear the soup plates, carve the meat, lay out the warm dishes of vegetables, and pour the wine. Catherine waited until they had gone, letting her temper cool, seeking the most wounding phrase she could find.

‘I’m used to servants, I never despise them. What I do despise are self-appointed schoolteachers.’

It was not a fortunate choice. He raised his glass to her and laughed, which was not the result she had hoped for at all.

‘I never had a sister, Miss Catherine, so perhaps I’m unused to the domestic life of the fair sex. But if I were your schoolteacher, I think I’d have bent you across my knee and given you a hearty spanking long ago.’

And you'd have liked it, too, he thought, as he saw the flush rise across her face and her eyes widen with anger. He remembered the chases he had had with Elsie in the Schwarzwald, and the rough, vicious, thrilling wrestling matches with which they had ended. Both of them had been covered with love bites and bruises everywhere. He had not known love could be like that; he had seldom thought of it any other way, afterwards. This girl was slimmer and more finely built than Elsie but from the graceful, assertive way she moved he had had little doubt that her body was hard and athletic as well as beautiful. I could see you lying below me in the pine needles, he thought, kicking and scratching like a hellcat. Except that it's winter here and there's only heather or sand. Or bogland. Perhaps it'll have to be indoors. Could I manage it, in a week?

He leaned forward and watched her over the table, cradling his wineglass in both hands. Catherine was shocked. She remembered the same fear and fascination she had felt for him when they had first met, only a week ago - could it be such a short time? This was a man quite unlike any others she knew. Self-contained, dreamy, with an arrogant self-confidence quite equal to her own, and something more, that frightened her. As though, when he looked at her, he did not see a person at all. Like a hawk looking down at a vole.

She said: ‘I don’t think you know very much about women. If you tried to spank me I’d scratch your eyes out.’

The burst of delighted laughter which greeted that remark unsettled her even more than before.

Next day she suggested, rather as a way of putting him in his place, that they ride around the estate together. She wanted to take control, and show that both Killrath and the initiative belonged to her, which was the way she liked it.

Also, he would give her something else to think about. His insolence last night had made her angry, but it was a welcome anger. It had stopped her thinking about herself and Sean for nearly an hour, and that could only be good.

They rode along the clifftops to the west. Catherine rode Grainne, sitting side-saddle in a long brown skirt, slim black riding jacket and small round hat. Andrew was mounted on Simla, a big bay cob that her father used for hunting. The animal played up at first, and it became clear to her after a mile or so that Andrew was a competent horseman, no more. He was a little hard on the beast's mouth, impatient and rough when it was not needed.

‘He’s lively,’ he shouted across to her. ‘Feeling his oats. Isn’t there some open ground where we can have a gallop, steam some of it off ?’

‘In half a mile or so.’ First they had to go along a narrow path with only four or five yards between the stone wall on their right and the cliff-edge on their left. For most of the way the cliff was a steep grassy slope, going down a couple of hundred feet or more to an outcrop of black rocks just above the sea; but there was a passage of a hundred yards or so round an indented bay where the cliffs dropped sheer into the water. Catherine led the way on Grainne, who picked her steps daintily along the narrow path. Looking down to her left, Catherine could see gulls and kittiwakes launch themselves off ledges into space, floating effortlessly in the updraught over the grey waves below. Her parents had forbidden her to ride along here as a child, and even her brothers had refused to do it when she dared them. That was why she had brought Andrew. It was a place that tested the nerves of both horse and rider; there was no room for fear or mistakes.

Catherine had always enjoyed heights, and she had absolute confidence in Grainne.

When she was halfway round the bay she reined the mare in, and glanced back over her shoulder. Simla was about fifteen yards behind, plodding along steadily, lifting his head with a jerk and snorting every now and then as though aware of the danger. Andrew was talking to him and the horse had one ear back to listen, the other cocked forward towards Catherine and Grainne.

A black-backed gull swooped down between them, soaring sideways on the wind that rushed up over the cliff. As it neared Simla it screamed loudly, and bent its three-foot wings to sweep upwards within a foot of the horse's head. The cob checked, snorted, and tossed its head from side to side to try to see where the bird had gone. Andrew dragged at its mouth sharply and kicked it forward. Alarmed, Simla broke into a trot. Catherine could see that in a few seconds he would be up with Grainne on the narrow path, and there was no room to pass.

She nudged the mare forward into a quiet walk. Even she had never trotted along here and it seemed a mad thing to do. She heard a snort and a sharp curse from behind her, and felt the hunter nudge her horse's rump. She looked round quickly. Andrew was holding Simla’s head in hard, and the animal was straining, its eyes white, its ears sharply back.

Andrew yelled: ‘Go ahead, can’t you? He wants to trot - the bird's spooked him.’

Catherine ignored him. A few yards ahead the gap between the stone wall and the cliff edge was at its narrowest, less than two yards wide. Grainne picked her way daintily towards it, refusing to be flustered by the fuss behind her. Catherine knew that Grainne could see off most of the other horses when they were out together in the field; it was unlikely that Simla would have the nerve to try to push his way past her.

And if Andrew Butler did fall off the cliff because he was a bad horseman, that would be very unfortunate. A great waste of a good horse.

They reached the narrow place and Grainne stepped quietly through it. There was a snort and a clatter behind. Catherine glanced back over her shoulder. Andrew had reined Simla in and was trying to force him to stand. The horse danced nervously and sidewalked in a half-circle. Catherine had the impression that Andrew's face was paler than usual.

She walked Grainne on to the far side of the bay, where the grass at the clifftop widened. Then she turned the mare and waited until the other two came up to her. She smiled and pointed.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘You can see where we were from here. Dramatic, isn’t it?’

The narrow section was on an overhang, and the cliff edge went down quite vertically beneath it for fifty feet, then sloped inwards. At the bottom, about two hundred feet below, a wave surged forward and burst over a line of jagged black rocks.

‘We call them the Devil’s Teeth,’ she said. ‘They say the Vikings used to throw monks down on to them, years ago.’

Andrew shouted: ‘Why the hell didn't you trot when I said?’

She smiled, as though she had forgotten it, and said: ‘It’s dangerous. You need to keep the horses calm in a place like that. Come on. Didn’t you want a gallop?’

She nudged Grainne into a trot, put her straight at the stone wall, and leapt neatly over. On the far side was a field grazed more or less smooth by sheep. She cantered down it, leapt the gate at the bottom, and crossed several more small, rocky, stonewalled fields in the same way. She reined in at the edge of a small lake, dismounted, and sat on a rock, holding the reins loosely in her hand so that the mare could graze.

Andrew came up a few minutes later. Simla was sweating and foaming slightly at the mouth.

She watched him critically as he dismounted. Perhaps there’ll be a little less arrogance now, she thought.

She asked: ‘Did you enjoy that?’

At first he did not answer. She had unsettled him and he was not used to that. He walked down to the edge of the lake, picked up a stone and skimmed it across the water. Then he sat down on a rock, took out a cigarette and lit it. As he exhaled the first breath, he said: ‘Do you always ride like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like - someone who’s afraid of nothing.’

‘You don’t have to be afraid if you trust the horse. I’ve had Grainne since she was a filly. Why? Did Simla scare you?’

‘A little. He hasn’t got any wings, as far as I can see.’

She laughed. And that was progress, he thought. There was no fear in the laugh, it was a shared thing. He didn't want a girl who was afraid of him all the time. After last night’s conversation he had wondered if he might have made her too nervous; after this morning’s ride he wondered if she would ever be afraid of him again. Elsie had been afraid of him, a little, he remembered. That had added spice to it - the knowledge that he could do what he wanted, that in the end she would always submit. But too much fear would have made her a quivering jelly, like those girls in the brothels. No fight, no fun at all.

For Catherine, the laugh was a relief too. She had been so bound up in herself, she had not thought she ever would find anything funny again. But the exercise, the pleasure she got from feeling Grainne so perfectly at one with her, had released her tension more than anything that could have happened in Dublin. And now she had cut the man down to size a bit, he seemed more human.

A storm was darkening the sky a mile or so out to sea. Catherine said: ‘Since we’re here, would you like to see the family Ferguson wanted to evict?’

Andrew shrugged. ‘Why - are they paragons of peasant virtue?’

‘Hardly. That’s the whole point.’

As they rode round the side of the mountain and down a narrow lane, the rain caught up with them. At first it was a thin drizzle, sweeping out of the west under a gloomy sky. Then there was a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder out at sea.

The rebuilt cottage was much as Catherine remembered it. Rough stone walls, with moss and plants clinging to them on the south and west; thatch that needed renewing, muddy footpaths through a garden full of stalky cabbages and undug rows of potatoes. A thin line of peat smoke came from the chimney, and there was a cow and a donkey in one field. Two young men, about fourteen and sixteen, were digging in the other.

‘Hello, Brian,’ Catherine called out. ‘Is your mother home?’

‘Sure, and where else in the world would she be?’

A thin, dirty, dark-haired woman of about forty came to the door of the house, a scowl on her face, her children lurking in the background. When she saw who it was she wiped her face with the back of her hand, and the scowl changed into a grimace which might have been meant as a smile. ‘Is it yourself back again among us then, Miss Catherine?’

‘I am that, Josie.’

‘It’s the best place for you.’ The woman came down to the gate, pulling a shawl over her head against the sweeping rain. ‘That Dublin’ll be no place for a girl like you, what with all the shootings and murdering that’s going on there now. Is it true what they say, that even the Viceroy himself is shut shivering in his bedroom for fear of the boys that’s running round the town now?’

‘Not exactly, Josie.’ Catherine thought of Sean, locked alone in his tiny cell. ‘But those boys are doing their best. They’ll have the country free yet, you wait and see.’

The woman turned her head and spat expressively into the mud. ‘I wouldn’t have no truck with them. It’s them my Kevin went off to join, likely, when he said he was after taking the King’s shilling. And where’s the money he’s supposed to send me from their stinking republic, eh? You tell me that’'

Catherine shook her head. ‘Kevin probably didn’t go to either of them, Josie. But the Republic will come and it’ll make things better for everyone, you wait and see.’

‘Nah.’ Josie waved her arm dismissively. ‘You’re a good girl, Miss Catherine, but you’re after filling your head with moonshine if you believe that. There’s no one in this country but you and your mother ever did me a good turn, and that’s never a thing to do with soldier boys one side or the other. Will you come in out of the rain and take a dish of tay?’