The romantic, p.4
The Romantic, page 4
The twins were now five years old and loudly boisterous, Mrs Creevy was long gone, worn out by her charges – even Buckley seemed more animated – and Cashel found the only way he could escape their constant attention and the household hullaballoo was by sneaking off to the summer house at the end of the back lawn. He made it his own place, bringing in some furniture – an old rug, a desk, a chair, a bookcase – and rigged up a kind of divan bed covered with a Kashmir shawl and some pillows where he could stretch out and read, undisturbed. It became his domain.
However, he was always careful to disguise his journey there, choosing a simple subterfuge of leaving through the front door, as if he were walking into town, then veering off unobserved to the stables to have a word with Albert, if he was there, and then, casually, he could skirt by the walled garden and dart unseen into the summer house. Hogan and Buckley searched for him in vain.
The route to the summer house. A. The Botley–Oxford Road. B. The Glebe. C. The stables. D. The walled garden. E. The summer house.
One summer afternoon while he was making his circuitous way to the summer house, he bumped into Daisy, the housemaid, as she emerged from the walled garden with a heavy basket of plums and greengages in her hand.
‘Oh, Daisy, hello, it’s you.’
‘So it is, Master Cashel,’ she said, smiling at him in her sly way.
‘Can I pinch some of those plums?’
She held out the basket for him, still smiling in a rather knowing manner, Cashel thought, as he filled his pockets. It had not escaped his notice that, since his voice had deepened and he’d grown six inches, Daisy had taken more interest in him. She was in her early twenties, now, a short, strapping young woman, with a mass of thick brown hair stuffed carelessly under her bonnet. She had a broad face with a snub nose that was too snub, Cashel thought, making her upper lip seem unnaturally long. But she was a lively, efficient, self-confident person and Elspeth relied on her a great deal for the running of the Glebe.
‘And where are you off to, Master Cashel? The summer house?’
‘Yes, as it happens. I have to finish reading a book by tomorrow and I need some peace and quiet away from the two monsters.’
‘Peace and quiet, mmm? I knows what you get up to in that summer house …’
She had a marked Oxfordshire accent. Her family lived in Charlbury in the Evenlode Valley, some fifteen miles away from Oxford. Her father had died and her mother swiftly remarried. ‘But I didn’t like my stepdad,’ she had once confided in Cashel. ‘He were a bit too fond of me, if you know what I mean, so I took myself off to Oxford to look for work and lodgings. And here I am.’
Now, Cashel felt his mouth going dry.
‘What do you mean by that? “Get up to”?’
‘I saw you going in there the other day and I crept up and spied on you. And I saw what I saw.’
‘What?’ Cashel’s face was hot.
‘I saw you pulling on your po-go, Master Cashel, that’s what I saw through the window.’
He said nothing. Swallowed hard. It was true, worse luck. No denial could save him.
‘If you ever want a helping hand, you be sure to let me know.’ She turned and sauntered off, hips swaying under her skirts.
Cashel didn’t let her know – and when they encountered each other in the house nothing seemed to have altered since their charged conversation. But he kept on going to the summer house as usual and, one warm afternoon, with Elspeth out for a ride in the barouche with the twins, there was a light rap on the door frame and Daisy stepped into view.
Two weeks later, Cashel was fishing in the Cherwell, down by Merton Fields, with Ben Smart. The day was sultry, and the thin clouds that screened the sun gave a strange opaque bony glow to the flowing river water, as if it were ashy, somehow.
Cashel watched Ben cast his line skilfully under overhanging willows. For an uncoordinated lad he fished well, he thought. In an unforced, natural, almost inevitable way, the two had become good friends over the years they had spent at the Scholars’ table in Dean Smythe’s Academy. Ben had tried to grow a downy dark moustache to make himself look older but wasn’t really succeeding in that regard.
‘You remember that sermon that Dean Smythe gave us?’ Ben said, casting again into the stream. ‘About the Sin of Onan?’
‘Of course. Never to be forgotten.’
‘It’s been on my mind and I think I’ve finally understood it.’
‘Oh, yes. And I feel you’re about to inform me of your exegetical conclusions.’
‘It’s not about frigging, you see. That’s a wanton distortion. It’s about not doing it with your brother’s wife – even if he’s dead.’
‘No, no, you must be wrong. The Lord instructed Onan to do it with his brother’s wife.’ Cashel paused, realizing this was the moment – he needed to confess.
‘The Sin of Onan,’ he went on, as casually as he could manage, ‘is actually about coitus interruptus.’
Ben silently wound in his line and laid his rod on the riverbank. He turned and faced Cashel, hands on hips, staring at him.
‘And what do you know about coitus interruptus, Ross, you blackguard?’
‘I’ve done it.’
‘You’ve kept this from me. Tell all, or I’ll never forgive you.’
And it came tumbling forth as Cashel related to him, in considerable detail, everything that had happened between him and Daisy that day and what she had instructed him to do.
This isn’t going to take place, Master Cashel, Daisy had said, unless you follow my strictest rules. She walked into the summer house and stood before him. I will, Cashel said instantly, I’ll do everything you say. Then Daisy lifted her skirt briefly and showed Cashel the dark triangle of hair where her strong thighs met, then dropped her skirt. You can have the real thing, she said, but – but – you have to get off the coach before it reaches the inn, if you catch my drift. Cashel thought for a second. When you think you’re about to explode, Daisy added, you retreat. Yes, I understand, Cashel said, realizing what she meant now.
Daisy sat down on the divan opposite him and lay back. Get them breeches off and keep your kerchief in your hand to catch yourself. Cashel shucked down his breeches and reached for his kerchief as Daisy spread her legs and hauled up her skirt. Cashel moved forward, cock already rigid. Daisy put her hand on his chest. One last thing, she said. I don’t want to get knapped, see, like every other housemaid and chambermaid in Oxford in pod with a bairn on the way. If you don’t perform as I say I’ll tell your mother you forced yourself on me. That clear, Master Cashel?
Clear. Very clear, Daisy. Even though he was in a swoon of lust, Cashel did everything he was told.
On the riverbank Ben looked at him, disgustedly, jealously.
‘So you withdrew your arbor vitae from her cloven inlet?’
‘Exactly that. I committed the Sin of Onan. Q.E.D.’
‘I assume you’re going to enlighten the dean on his misreading.’
‘Hardly.’
‘How many times?’
‘Five, so far.’
‘Liar. Foul liar.’
‘Honour bright, Ben. I can’t quite believe it myself.’
Strangely, the next day, there was no sign of Daisy about the Glebe. He asked Mrs Pillard where she was and Mrs Pillard said, darkly, that he had better ask Mrs Ross. Cashel sought out Elspeth and, as unconcernedly as he could manage, wondered if Daisy was having a day off.
‘No. She’s been dismissed, I’m afraid,’ Elspeth said firmly.
‘Dismissed?’
‘She is no longer in our employ.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘Pilfering. It seems she’s been pilfering for months – for years, for all I know.’
‘Daisy? Surely not? She loves working here. She told—’ He stopped himself.
‘What’s it to you, Cashel?’
‘Nothing. I just thought you liked her.’
‘I do. I did. Until I found out she was a thieving minx.’
‘There’s nothing more to be said, then,’ he added, carelessly, he hoped.
‘I’m interviewing another maid this afternoon. Domestics come, domestics go. It’s the way of the world.’
‘How did you discover her?’
‘Hogan did.’
‘Hogan?’
‘He went up to her room – he shouldn’t have been there, I know – and turned out a chest he found under her bed. It was full of our stuff – silver, china, gewgaws.’
‘Hogan? But how—’
‘He brought down a sauce-boat that I thought had been lost. I asked him where he found it and he showed me. She was very clever. She only took things that were rarely used, small things easily not missed. An ivory thimble, a christening spoon, a Toby jug in the back of a cupboard. I had no option.’ She looked closely at Cashel. ‘She wasn’t to be trusted. You can’t have a servant in your house who can’t be trusted.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ Cashel said, nodding sagely. ‘You had no choice.’
The next time Cashel saw Hogan he gave him a heavy thwack with the flat of his hand on the back of his head which made the boy cry.
Daisy’s malfeasance troubled Cashel. He felt guilty about her sudden dismissal – illogically, as if his own sexual transgression with her had somehow brought about her unmasking as a petty thief. Damn that boy, Hogan! Yet, as he thought on, he wondered if her overt advances to him had been part of another, larger plan in her mind. What would she have asked him to furnish or provide once he was fully in her sway? He would have done anything, he knew, out of pure, hot desire and with the further threat and fear of exposure always lurking – the most potent lever against him. He found himself thinking again, reluctantly, of Dean Smythe’s sermon and its dire warnings and repercussions. Had he escaped some awful fate? Had he sinned? Was this the price for committing the real Sin of Onan? He vowed never to be so tempted again.
The new housemaid was duly appointed – Mrs Rosebury, a sour-faced, humourless woman in her thirties, widowed with three children. Cashel felt himself ill, troubled by the whole affair, and Dr Jolly was summoned. He diagnosed a fit of the ague and prescribed some of his potions – a tincture of Turkey Rhubarb and his own patent Restorative Nervous Cordial – that made Cashel feel marginally worse.
Pelham Ross returned for a stay of three weeks, much to Elspeth’s and the twins’ joy. Cashel rose from his sickbed and, given the distraction Ross’s presence provided, began to feel better. Ross seemed in genial mood – all was well with his world – and for the first time Cashel felt the new force of his interest. There was talk of university, a career in the law perhaps, or even of joining Ross in his various business ventures.
One morning at breakfast – Cashel and Ross were the first downstairs – the discussion was renewed. Ross quizzed him about his strongest subjects; Latin and Greek, Cashel replied. Then it must be the law, Ross said and as a qualified lawyer you’d be well suited for the world of commerce, of buying and selling, with some advantage.
‘I’d still like to travel the world,’ Cashel said. ‘Perhaps I could be of use in your South African affairs.’
‘South Africa? What about it?’
‘Your mines, your entrepots.’
‘Ah, yes. South Africa is over, alas. Everything wound up. Pass me those kidneys, will you? I’ve the hunger of a wolf this morning.’
There was something about the glibness of this answer that gave Cashel pause. South Africa was routinely cited as the reason for his long absences from the family. Elspeth would remark, ‘If only Pelham worked in Europe and not so far away. Still – needs must.’ And that was the end of the matter. And now, suddenly it seemed, it was no more.
Ross acquired two horses, a big bay hunter and a smaller sorrel mare, and he and Cashel started to go on rides together through the great expanse of meadows south of the city. Cashel, never wholly comfortable on the back of a horse, had to admire how at ease Ross was in the saddle as he cantered along a loop of the Isis, leaping effortlessly over hedges and wooden gates. Cashel would dismount and lead his horse rather than risk a tumble, for which he was subject to Ross’s gentle mockery. ‘We’ll make a horseman of you yet, lad, don’t you worry.’ He was pleased to be sharing time with Ross – unknown almost, hitherto – and he sensed the polite reserve that had existed between the two of them begin to dissolve.
Ross was sophisticated and well travelled; he talked to Cashel of his stays in Brussels, Paris and Vienna. He advised him – after he had taken his degree, of course – to spend a year or more travelling at his leisure through Europe, volunteering to subsidize such a trip as well. See something of the world, Cashel, while you’re young and without responsibilities, he advised. Then you can find yourself a wife and a profession without dreaming of opportunities never experienced. Such a voyage pre-empted all kinds of regrets, he said, speaking from personal experience.
One evening before supper, a fortnight into his stay, the family was gathered in the small drawing room. Mrs Rosebury had brought Hogan and Buckley down from the nursery to spend half an hour with their parents before their bedtime. Hogan was sitting on Ross’s knee, laughing and chuckling as Ross bounced him up and down as if he were riding a horse. Buckley was foraging for something under a table while Cashel sat with a glass of sherry in his hand. Elspeth topped his drink up from the decanter.
‘Cashel, old fellow,’ Ross called from across the room, ‘Would you fetch me a cigar from the humidor in my study? This young horseman, here, refuses to dismount.’
Cashel picked up a candelabrum and stepped upstairs to the small room off the landing where Ross had established his study. A big partner’s desk filled most of the space but there was also a low glass-fronted bookcase on top of which stood the walnut humidor with a brass handle. Cashel lifted the lid and some sort of mechanical device within made the front drop down and three staggered, grooved drawers present themselves. Ross smoked three or four cigars a day, Cashel had noticed, and he had a good supply here, some three dozen or so thin knobbled cheroots, darkly brown, almost black. Cashel selected one for Ross and then took one for himself. He fancied himself as a cigar-smoker, not a pipe-smoker like the older fellows at school. Altogether too fussy, he thought: all that tamping down, the effortful lighting and relighting, puffing away, not to mention the messy and tiresome business of cleaning the thing. He slipped the stolen cigar in his jacket pocket and held the other one to his nose, rolling it in his fingers to release the raw tobacco smell.
Something clicked in his brain then – some image, some lost memory signalling – but whatever he was unconsciously trying to remember was elusive. He could hear Buckley downstairs, wailing, and lingered a while in the study, aimlessly trying the drawers in the desk to see what they contained. The lower drawers opened, and were empty, but the top two drawers were locked tight. Why? he wondered, idly, and set off downstairs with Ross’s cigar.
The mystery of the locked drawers nagged at him, however, along with the broken and teasing association of memories that the cigar had triggered. What was he half-remembering? Perhaps it was something in a dream, he told himself, and so there would be no logical connection – it would be for ever irretrievable. But the locked drawers … What was Ross hiding there that demanded such security in his family home?
The next week Ross went up by coach to London to see his lawyer and his banker, he said, adding that he would be away two or three days. Cashel went to the stable and retrieved a long thin nail from the tool box that Albert kept there and, with the aid of a pair of pincers, bent the sharp end of the nail down by ninety degrees to form a crude key. He waited until Elspeth had left the house, crept into Ross’s study and closed the door.
The simple key, after a certain amount of jiggling around, proved sufficient to manipulate the small lock on the right-hand drawer and Cashel pulled it open to reveal a mass of papers. Nothing seemed particularly interesting: letters, receipts, bills to be paid. Why lock a drawer full of such mundane, uninteresting stuff? he wondered. He had been half-hoping for some cash, a sovereign or two. Then his attention was caught by a letter. He took it out of the drawer and went to the window so the light would fall on the tiny copperplate handwriting. The seal was broken so he unfolded it.
‘Dear Sir Guy,’ he read.
He read it again, his throat constricted, his breathing suddenly short.
He went back to the drawer and took out an account of goods delivered from a timber merchant in Castlemountallen, County Cork, addressed to ‘Sir Guy Stillwell, Stillwell Court’.
He felt an alarming thudding in his chest and his hands began to shake. He closed his eyes, trying to calm himself.
In his mind’s eye he saw the stub of a cigar on the path through the wood from Glanmire Cottage to Stillwell Court. Saw the man in the tall hat at the garden door. Everything at once became clear – and yet everything was a mystery.
Trembling, almost tearful, he put the account back in the drawer and closed it. He had to go and sit somewhere quiet and undisturbed so he could fathom exactly what this devastating information implied and what conclusions were to be drawn. He was going to take his time, do nothing impetuously. He stepped out of the study – and stepped back in again. With his bent nail he carefully re-locked the drawer and then went out to the summer house to think and ponder what he might do next.
Cashel was pleased at his due caution, his prudent restraint. He deliberately didn’t think of the future, but concentrated on this one fact that had now been revealed to him – this one shocking fact – namely that Mr Pelham Ross, ‘husband’ of Mrs Elspeth Ross, and genuine father of the twins, was in fact Sir Guy Stillwell, of Stillwell Court, County Cork. What did that imply? How did that change everything? What was the complex subterfuge that had led to the existence of this pseudonymous family in the Glebe, Oxford? Only his Aunt Elspeth could tell him what the truth was.
