Another Heartbeat in the House (30 page)

‘That's because Faulkes is an irresponsible and profligate fool. He is the kind of landlord who gives others among us a bad name.'

‘But aren't Irish landowners spending more time in London generally? Lord Meresford was in residence only once last year, and beggars are crowding the roads around his demesne.'

At the window St Leger was still contemplating the view with his back to me, his shoulders set in an attitude that clearly said he did not want to be having this conversation. Knowing that no one else would have it with him, I continued, regardless.

‘Didn't you see them on your way here? They are stick thin and ragged.'

‘It's called the summer hunger,' he said. ‘It ends in October, when the lumpers are harvested.'

‘Lumpers?'

‘A variety of potato. Trust me – things will improve, come autumn.'

‘And if they don't?'

‘Eliza – my interests in Ireland now lie mainly in seeing that you and my daughter are comfortable and happy.'

‘I'm glad we are part of your rubric.'

‘You are very dear to me. Both of you. But I would quit the country tomorrow were it not for you.'

I felt the grip of fear. The prospect of being left on my own in this godforsaken place with no sponsor was unthinkable.

‘We are comfortable,' I assured him. ‘But we miss you. If we were in London you could visit us more often. Cannot you buy us a little house there? We would not require anything so large as this.'

‘Sophia would not tolerate it.'

‘She was not averse to your building this house.'

‘In Ireland you are out of sight, sweetheart, and that is how Sophia likes it. If you came to London we could not conduct our liaison with the same discretion.'

‘We are hardly discreet, St Leger! Everyone in North Cork knows of our affair.'

‘Ireland is another country. London is the hub of the universe.'

‘And people there are sophisticated enough to know that gentlemen keep mistresses,' I argued.

‘Most gentlemen's mistresses have not borne the heir to a fortune. If word got out that George is not Sophia's natural child, the calumny would ruin her.'

‘How could word get out?'

‘The popular press thrives on speculation. Remember what became of Sarah Lennox.'

‘Who's she?'

‘The daughter of the Duke of Richmond. Her husband divorced her because she bore him a bastard child, and she died in poverty. It was reported in the most lurid prose in all the scandal sheets. That is what Sophia fears more than anything – public humiliation.'

I gave my hair one last vigorous stroke of the brush and shook it out. ‘Imagine being concerned about what people say about you! I should hate to have a good reputation.'

‘Why?'

‘You can't lose something you never had in the first place.'

I sent him a winning smile, then set my hairbrush down and returned my attention to Clara. She was still kicking her heels in the pool of sunlight, telling herself jokes and gurgling with laughter.

‘She's talking already,' I said. ‘Listen to her! I've been speaking French to her – haven't I,
mon petit chou
!'

‘She will be as fluent
en français
as in English by the time she's old enough to go to school.'

I bit my tongue. School! What school was there hereabouts for my daughter? I had heard that poor Irish children were educated in what were called ‘hedge' schools, where they were instructed in Irish grammar and the lives of the saints. What use would that be to Clara? And what would become of her when she wanted companions? She would not lack for company in London. In London she could have access to proper education as well as to society. I longed to say all this to St Leger, and more, but I knew he would not care to hear it. Clara Venus was not his primary concern: George was.

‘They're burning gorse somewhere,' he said. ‘I can smell it on the wind.'

‘The smell is like roasting chestnuts, isn't it? I used to love the smell from the braziers of the vendors in Regent's Park. How I should love to walk there with you! We could go skating on the pond in winter, and take Clara to the zoo.'

‘Are you really so eager to be close to me?'

‘Yes,' I fibbed.

He smiled at me indulgently, then came back to the bed and bowed his head to kiss my foot. I wriggled my toes prettily, and leaned back on my elbows, looking ruefully at his dear, silken head.

The fact was, it was not his company I craved; it was the society of like-minded people, for I was suffering from chronic ennui. I could not write, for Clara Venus was jealous of any time I spent at my desk; besides, my head was too moony with motherhood to concentrate on my manuscript. I could not pay social calls upon anyone in the neighbourhood, for since news of my affair had got out I had become a pariah in polite circles. I had no inclination or aptitude for pursuits such as embroidery, and felt incapable of reading anything more demanding than frivolous French novels.

I had lived here alone in Lissaguirra for nearly a year, and the winter had been a sore trial. Never in my most far-fetched dreams had I envisaged a future rearing a child in a remote corner of a benighted country with no one but two biddies and a donkey to talk to. It had been short-sighted of me not to have anticipated the possibility of a second baby: I should have known that fraternal twins were a possibility, since my mother had been one. It is, however, easy to be wise in hindsight.

‘Who's that?' St Leger had been distracted from his nibbling of my toes by the sound of approaching hooves. ‘Are you expecting someone?'

‘Oh, yes. It is my knight in shining armour. I had forgotten he was due today.'

He gave me a testy look, and made for the window.

‘It's a man on a roan mare,' he observed.

‘What does he look like?'

‘He's tall. Heavy built.'

‘Bespectacled? Wavy hair?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's William!'

I shrugged into my negligee, scooped up Clara Venus and ran to the window.

‘William!' I called down to him. ‘William Makepeace Thackeray! Up here!'

‘What do you think you're doing, Eliza?' snapped St Leger. ‘Waving at a man from your bedroom window!'

‘He doesn't know it's my bedroom window. Besides, it's only William. William!'

Thackeray looked up short-sightedly, finally pinpointing whence I was hailing him.

‘Hello there!' I called again. ‘Meet Clara Venus!'

I held Clara up so that he could get a good look.

‘Clara Venus,' echoed William. ‘Good God. Is she yours?'

‘Yes!' I said. ‘And St Leger's.'

‘St Leger? Who the deuce is he?'

St Leger looked testier than ever. ‘I am,' he said interposing himself between me and the window frame.

‘Come in, come in!' I cried to William over his shoulder. ‘You're just in time for tea!'

EDIE SET DOWN
the manuscript. William Thackeray had been in this house? William Thackeray – who had been lauded as lustily as Dickens, whose
Vanity Fair
appeared routinely in lists of the top ten most beloved novels of all time, whose Becky Sharp was the nineteenth-century prototype of heroine
du jour
Scarlett O'Hara – had actually hacked through a forest on a roan mare to pay homage to the ch
a
teleine of Lissaguirra? How devoutly he must have admired her!

The library fire was almost out; the mantel clock struck twelve. Edie threw a handful of sticks into the grate, lobbed on another sod of turf, and reached for the next page as if it were gift-wrapped, and had her name on it.

It was the first time ever I had entertained a guest in my salon. The Biddies were overcome with excitement. We had griddle cakes and cinnamon biscuits and rhubarb wine as well as copious amounts of tea, which young Biddy served as decorously as if she had been to the manner born, instead of in the usual slapdash fashion.

William's dear candid face had registered nothing but confusion from the moment he had arrived, and I knew his discomfiture would not be assuaged until I had a chance to explain everything to him. The fact was that I had not acquainted him with either my maternal or my extramarital status. He knew nothing of St Leger or Clara Venus; all he knew from my letters was that I had come into money somehow, and had stayed on in Ireland to embark on a career as a lady novelist.

‘You have taken me quite by surprise,' I told him, as I fussed over the tea things, ‘so you must excuse our shortcomings. We are mighty quiet and comfortable here – we live in a muddle, and dress in the morning for all day. That is why you find me in déshabille.' I had thrown on a morning robe and a fichu of Alençon lace that St Leger had given me, and my hair was undressed and tied up in a silk scarf. ‘Now, have some of these griddle cakes that Biddy has made especially for you,' I said, settling down next to St Leger on the sofa opposite William, ‘and tell us all about your journey – whence you have come and where you are going.'

‘I travelled by coach from Waterford,' he told us, ‘and hired a horse at the posting house in Lismore.'

‘So your baggage has gone south, with the coach?' I asked.

‘Yes. To Cork. I will catch up with it there.'

‘You have had fine weather for travelling,' said St Leger.

‘Yes.'

‘How did you find Dublin?'

‘The leaves on the trees in Fitzwilliam Square are not as sooty as in similar parks in London.'

I wanted to laugh at the pair of them sitting stiff-backed on my eau de Nil brocade upholstery, eyeing each other like a couple of wary dogs. Because they were both big men, the teacups and saucers in their hands looked like dolls' dishes, and I guessed that they would rather be drinking whiskey: however, there would be time for that later.

‘You came through Carlow town?' asked St Leger politely, taking a sip from his porcelain cup.

‘Yes.'

‘So you saw the grand new cathedral.'

‘Rather overloaded with ornamentation, to my eye,' said William. ‘And some of the spires were out of the perpendicular.'

‘How did you find Lismore?' enquired St Leger. ‘If the cathedral in Carlow was not to your taste, you must allow that the Duke's seat is an outstanding example of Gothic architecture.'

‘It is a magnificent castle to be sure, and worthy of a plutocrat such as His Grace. But it is a pity that with such a noble residence – and with such wondrously scenic country round about it – he should not inhabit it more.'

I folded my hands in my lap and tried not to look smug. This had been my very point earlier, when St Leger and I had been talking politics!

‘His Grace travels extensively,' said St Leger, by way of excuse for the Duke of Devonshire, who owned acre upon acre of Ireland's woods, mountains, farms and rivers. ‘He has a keen interest in horticulture.'

‘Yes. I understand he has had a banana named after him.' William helped himself to another biscuit. ‘He certainly benefits from his Hibernian estates – I believe that the salmon fishery on the river beneath the castle is let for a thousand pounds a year.'

A thousand pounds a year! I thought of the lake that lay shimmering a hundred yards from where we were sitting, and how much the fishing rights might have been worth to me. I remembered how I had once joked with William that I could be a good woman if I had a thousand pounds a year …

‘However, there seemed to be few signs of industry or commerce in the country generally,' continued William. ‘I have been taking notes.'

He produced a small notebook, and St Leger threw him a look of disgust. He was bored with this talk, I could tell, and had given up hope that he might engage our guest in the topics that interested him most – hunting, fishing and gambling.

Luckily, we were rescued by Clara Venus, who chose that moment to waken from the cosy nest of cushions I had piled for her upon the sofa. ‘Laaa!' she sang, and I swooped upon her like a turtle dove upon her chick.