As the hired chaise wound its way
west, Caroline submitted to a sweet tranquillity. Truly bewitched for the time
being, by the handsome lover at her side, she shut out all the disturbing
thoughts. Anxious to avoid argument, she had refrained from an enquiry about
the gold band which he had not offered to return. None who knew her would have
recognised the spirited girl she was in this docile image snuggling in her fur
wrap. She detected no trace of smugness in her escort's smile.
A fiddler, playing for small coin,
swept the passing chaise with an obsequious bow.
“Bah!” Nick exclaimed contemptuously,
throwing him a small coin, “how these mendicants plague the country! There
should be a law .....”
“They must earn their living the best
they can,” Caroline interjected, nettled by his arrogance, “and they do provide
the only entertainment that poor people can enjoy.”
“Must you always take the part of the
poor, Caroline?”
“Perhaps I am one of them.”
“Not you. Not now. Now you are my wife
and I should be obliged if you put the past behind you.”
“There is so much to remember ..... hard times ..... old friends.”
“Your erstwhile friend, Hugh Ro O'Moran, for instance?” Nick said bitterly, angry with
himself that he had roused her from her sweet dreaming. “Have you known him
long?”
“Only for a short time. He worked for my Uncle Martin Drynan for a summer.”
“Why did he choose to work so far from
his native Kerry?”
“The wages were better. It was a good
place to work.”
“A welcoming place?”
“Very welcoming.”
“Let us hope we shall be welcome. Your
Aunt Rose did not welcome me.”
“Never mind Aunt Rose. She has her moods. She never hides
her feelings.”
“Nor does that impetuous young man, Conn Drynan. A presumptuous upstart, if ever there
was one. How dared he think to woo you?”
“He had no reason to think himself
inferior. He is the heir to Moybranach. He mixes with
the
“And with other gentry who shall be
unmentioned, no doubt. Else how did we learn his manifest hate of the king's
army?”
“I do not think it was hate he felt
for you. It was jealousy. Surely you can appreciate that sentiment. Or am I so
lacking in the qualities that provoke it?”
There was a hint of roguery in the
question. He hastened to assure her that she was desirable beyond description.
Anyone might be excused. So the conversation drifted into calmer waters.
They laughed together, differences
forgotten. The world outside their carriage window drifted in an autumn haze.
Unrecognised and unannounced they swept up the winding drive to the solid house
that was Moybranach. Even the watchful Rose Drynan was taken by surprise.
“I said you'd be back,” she said
crisply, eyeing the ultramarine habit and the exquisitely shaded feathers of
Caroline’s city hat.
“Of course, Mrs Drynan,”
Nick replied, “Caroline is your niece, isn't she? And my
wife; that is why I had the temerity to return.”
“So,” said Rose Drynan,
sweeping the uniform with a sharp eye, “she has made her choice. A good match,
no mistaking ..... even
better than Lucy's. Well it seems I’m to be surrounded with military in my old
age. It's well defended I'll be, not that I needed defending. Well defended old
Nick caught no note of effrontery in
her voice. What an amusing character she was, after all. His laugh was loud and
hearty; even Rose appreciated the tribute. From that moment they behaved like
the best of friends. The bridal couple were invited to enter the big kitchen
which, as usual, was warm with a huge turf fire and savoury with the smell of
roasting meat.
“You can have your own room,” Rose
said, taking it for granted that they would stay the night, “it's just as you
left it ..... black box and all. I wish to goodness
you'd take that thing away. It puts me in mind of Millicent Picton
and that's no cheery thought.”
It was no cheery thing to be greeted
by the same black box. It stood in the corner of the room, locked and
inscrutable. What in the world could it possibly contain?
“Oh no ..... not
now,” she protested, when Nick suggested she opened it, “there’s nothing in it
but a few old things of Aunt Millicent's. I don't want to be reminded
..... not now, Nick.”
He shrugged his shoulders, already
intent on scanning the bare, clean room with its
exposed rafters that barely skimmed his head.
“It's like a ship,” he said, “but it
is not ships I came here to find. I want a word with your Uncle Martin. Oh no,
you have no need for alarm. There is some business I want to discuss.”
Back in the big kitchen, steaming
punch bowls in hand, he and Martin Drynan were as
much at one as any two men. Martin was too kind by nature to hark back to old
affronts, too shrewd a businessman to cherish offence against a good customer;
the army had been that, in truth, for he had bred and supplied fine horses for
the troops over many years. When Marsmain began to
talk about horses, he was talking a language Martin Drynan
understood. So he wanted to see the chestnut ..... the one that had been on loan to Captain Seveny.
He had seen him ridden to the hunt. If ever there was a fine jumper
..... Caroline felt a blush spread over her face that was not entirely
due to the hot punch. It was only yesterday, or was it a lifetime ago, she had ridden on that wild chase? In a way she was
glad that Nick had seen her. The way the conversation was going she was soon to
be gladder.
Out in the stables the bargain was
clinched. The chestnut was to be hers. After striking a hard bargain just for
the love of it, Martin Drynan gave a laugh.
“Tell you what,” he said, “let it be
my wedding gift to the lassie. There's nothing else I have that would be good
enough. It's the fine horsewoman, she is. I taught her myself. Not a word now.
It's my pleasure.”
There was no way Nick Marsmain could thank him enough except by being uncommonly
civil to himself and charming to Rose. Rose took it all like a magnum of
champagne. She was the great lady in the fine house dispensing the height of
hospitality: roast beef and rich gravy and potatoes laughing to burst their
sides, two serving maids to wait at table and it laid with the fine damask
tablecloth she had stowed away for a wedding, or something. Rose
colourful in the hand-knitted brilliantly patterned shawl that had come all the
way from Spain, a Spanish comb in her thick, high-piled hair. Arabella might act the part; she would never out-act Rose.
Martin Drynan fell in love all over again.
“Ah Rosie, you’re a sight for sore
eyes,” he said. “You're the belle of the
Of course he was a little tipsy and no
wonder for the best wine had been brought out. And presently Rose sent for the
old harp and it was set before Caroline. In her blue silk dress, her hair
flowing over her shoulders, she sat by the blazing turf fire and charmed the
hearts out of them with her singing. The serving maids and the stable lads and
some of the neighbours came in to listen and she charmed them all. But none was
more charmed than Nick Marsmain. It was grey dawn
before the music and the dancing and the singing and the drinking of good
liquor came to an end. Under the bare rafters that were like the rigging of a
ship Caroline lay quietly beside the man she had married in haste and was glad
for the quietude of his deep breathing.