Whistle for the Crows Page 11

  “Indeed, and you’ll not think of trying. If my nephews are late they eat cold food. That’s the rule.”

  As Mary Kate shuffled out with a tray of dishes, Miss O’Riordan went on.

  “My nephews are never required to make explanations, Mrs. Lamb.”

  Her black eyes snapped at Cathleen, daring her to ask either Rory or Liam any questions, no matter what stage her friendship might have reached. But in her very curtness, Cathleen sensed tension. Miss O’Riordan herself would dearly love to know what the men were up to. What had passed between her and Rory? What had happened to the money? Why was she behaving as if Cathleen’s very confidential errand in Dublin hadn’t even existed? And above all, what were Liam and Rory doing?

  “Mrs. Lamb, I expect some intelligent work from you this evening.”

  The old lady hadn’t missed Cathleen’s abstractedness. Neither had Kitty, who said slyly,

  “I expect Mrs. Lamb must be tired after a late night last night.”

  “A late night now and again wouldn’t do you any harm either, miss.”

  Kitty flushed and was effectively silenced. The uneasy meal was at last over. It was very warm. Darkness seemed to have come an hour too soon. But this was due to an incipient storm. When Cathleen went to the library she saw the magnificent black clouds piling up on the horizon. The air was heavy with the threat of thunder.

  Thunderstorms didn’t frighten her. On the contrary, they filled her with a strange excitement. It was difficult to concentrate on her notes as Miss O’Riordan talked.

  Miss O’Riordan seemed to find it difficult, too, for she spoke jerkily, and every now and then got up to walk about the room. Her memory was faulty, and she kept repeating herself. The material was rich with drama, but tonight the flavour had gone out of it. Neither of the two women were living in the past. They both had their ears alert for a sound of the men returning. Cathleen was sure Rory was out searching for the tinker who might once, in his true colours, have written and torn up an indiscreet letter in the bar of the Gresham Hotel, and later, for she now recognized the histrionic style, have written that anonymous note to her. Liam—his sick horse couldn’t have kept him all this time down at the stables.

  Was there a light in Eileen Burke’s window tonight? Suddenly that thought occurred to her. Eileen was sharp-eyed but attractive. She loved gaudy jewellery. She must wear it for some man.

  Lightning flashed across the windows, and there was a distant crack of thunder. Miss O’Riordan peered out into the dark night.

  “Kitty’s frightened of storms. She gets hysterical. I’d better go up. Can you carry on alone?”

  “Yes, Miss O’Riordan.”

  “There’s no need to stay up all night. But we must begin making progress. Something’s got to happen.”

  She stood, tall and gaunt, against the dark window, and Cathleen knew she wasn’t referring to the book being completed, or its profits. There was something much more compelling on her mind.

  After that, the house was very still. The storm seemed to have moved away, the rumble of thunder becoming fainter.

  With an effort of will Cathleen returned to her work. Soon the fascination of the letters and diaries absorbed her again, and she began marking passages. It was a pity none of them were more up to date. Even Aunt Tilly’s had stopped at the time when Shamus, Rory and Liam were still small children. Kitty wasn’t even mentioned.

  “Entertained Patrick’s junior officers. Talked of ball. Will have to organize it oneself, Cecilia incapable.”

  “Dublin, to see caterers and order new gown.”

  “Ball last night. A great success. Cecilia obscured in that unfortunate gown. How typically English of her to wear pale blue. For the rest, magnificent. The O’Riordans never in better form.”

  After that there were long gaps. A brief entry. “Back from the awful appalling boredom of Brighton.” Later still, “Cecilia pregnant again,” and even later, “Liam has measles. Am nursing him myself to keep infection from others. Cecilia would go straight from sickroom to hug and kiss Shamus and Rory and the Baby. Never stops to think”

  “Patrick in skirmish with the Black and Tans. They’ll get him one day, curse them.”

  “Liam better. Determined to keep up with the bigger boys, the gallant little fellow.”

  The last entry of all was stark and brief, “Patrick dead. They got him at last, the black murderers.”

  Apparently after that Aunt Tilly had either lost heart or grown into the kind of sober maturity that made her uninterested in the comparative trivia of a diary.

  A vivid flash of lightning startled Cathleen out of her absorption. The storm was back again, and this time directly overhead, for the first crash of thunder was violent. Then the rain began. Cathleen couldn’t resist throwing the windows wide open and leaning out to smell the freshness and to see the smothering black of the sky.

  Lightning lit up the silent fountain, then died and the thunder crashed again. At the same moment the wind sprang up, and the castle was full of rushing draught and billowing curtains. With a brief struggle, Cathleen got the windows shut. At the same moment the lights went out.

  For a second she stood still, feeling the eeriness. The room was pitch-dark, so was the hall and the staircase. Fortunately she had matches in her handbag. Pondering whether to go searching for Mary Kate and Patsy, who might produce lamps, or to grope her way up to her bedroom and go to bed, she decided on the latter course. She could undress in the dark.

  She struck matches to find her way up the stairs. The ceilings looked enormously high and shadowy, the staircase disappeared into black darkness. Half-way up the match burnt out, and she stopped to light another. At the same moment she heard strangled sobs.

  They came from Kitty’s room, she was sure, Kitty who got hysterical in thunderstorms, particularly, one imagined, when the lights failed.

  Poor little thing, thought Cathleen, and hurried to the top of the stairs, the match burning out again. It wasn’t quite so dark up here. The thundercloud was passing over, for dim light came in the long window at the end of the passage, and she could see the vague shape of doorways. She groped for Kitty’s door, opened it and went in.

  But now there was complete silence, except for the blowing wind and the faint shush-shush of heavy curtains.

  “Kitty! Are you all right?”

  She put out her hand to feel the way, and encountered something tall and upright. What was it? A bedpost? A person?

  Her voice shook. “Kitty! Have you got a light?”

  At that moment the lightning flashed again, brilliantly, and Cathleen’s heart stopped.

  She had walked into a room full of people, strange rigid people standing staring at her. There was an overpowering smell of mothballs and old clothes.

  Nobody moved. Cathleen put out a hand and touched a smooth, cool cheek, a nose, coarse, lifeless hair.

  She clapped her hand to her mouth, suppressing a scream.

  Were all the O’Riordans in here, embalmed and standing upright? Or was she in a dream in which all those letters and diaries had come to life?

  The thunder was dying away, rolling in the distance. But the flashes of lightning remained vivid and the next flash showed Cathleen that, among the standing figures, there was one sitting.

  And the wind sounded like someone breathing…

  Mesmerized, she put out her hand to touch the cold cheek of the sitting figure. And felt soft flesh…

  Then she did scream. She snatched back her hand as if it had been burnt. There was a chuckle. The figure slowly and deliberately stood up. Against the wan light of the clearing sky Cathleen could see the silhouette of a tall person in an immense cloak.

  “You deserved that fright, Mrs. Lamb,” said Miss O’Riordan in her gravelly voice. “Poking in here, too. One of these days someone will bite that inquisitive nose of yours off.”

  “This house!” gasped Cathleen.

  Miss O’Riordan chuckled again. Her dress rustled as she moved.
She had let the cloak slip back from her shoulders, and Cathleen could see a dim sparkle on her bosom.

  “This dress might look like a million glowworms—as someone once said—but it’s hardly sufficient to illuminate the room. Have you got any matches? There’s a lamp over there that could be lit. I’ve been sitting here waiting for Mary Kate with candles. These power failures happen now and again. We’re always prepared.”

  Cathleen found her hand shaking too much to strike the match.

  “I heard Kitty crying. I thought this was her room. I made a mistake in the dark.”

  “Well, never mind,” said Miss O’Riordan pleasantly. “I intended to show you in here one day. It’ll be of use to you in the book. Here, girl, give me the matches. What did you think you’d seen? A ghost?”

  Someone dead, and still sitting upright, Cathleen thought. The horror was a black shadow over her.

  But in a moment Miss O’Riordan had the old-fashioned lamplight glowing, and Cathleen was able to see clearly the amazing array of figures, each dressed in a different costume.

  “Preserving this museum is a little hobby of mine,” said the old lady. “I thought what a pity it was for expensive gowns to moulder away, folded in drawers, so at great expense I had these figures made and now I preserve the more interesting things. See, here’s my mother’s wedding gown, these are two of her ball gowns. And here’s my grandmother dressed for a race meeting on the Curragh. Now there was a woman of spirit, and a leader of fashion in her day. And you see this.” She held out a yellowed brocade slipper with a ridiculous little high heel. “The famous slipper, lost on the stairs.”

  She picked up the lamp and moved among the still figures, an uncanny evocation of another age herself.

  “If you’re interested in more modern times, I’ve found it amusing to keep my own favourite costumes. I once had fifteen ball gowns, did I tell you? Ah, those were the days.”

  “That’s one you’re wearing?” Cathleen asked.

  “This? Yes, my favourite. It was the time when sequins were all the rage. I also happened to wear it on the happiest night of my life. So sometimes I put it on and sit here quietly reviving old memories.”

  She shot her sharp glance at Cathleen.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “Sentimental,” Cathleen said warily, and at the same time knew that sentiment was the last emotion with which she would have credited Aunt Tilly.

  “Cecilia and Kitty both think I’m crazy. But perhaps neither of them has ever had that sort of night. One can’t see what sort of costume they’re going to contribute to the museum. Not even a wedding dress. Cecilia didn’t wear one, and Kitty—” Miss O’Riordan shrugged eloquently. “The storm’s dying. Will you go down and see what Patsy’s doing about lights. Take this lamp. I’m perfectly happy in here in the dark.”

  She was crazy, Cathleen thought as she left. And yet there was a shrewd sanity in the gaze she gave Cathleen. She enjoyed evoking the past in this way, and why shouldn’t she.

  Now she could see Kitty’s door, which she had accidentally passed. No sound came from within. She hesitated, then decided it was wiser not to disturb Kitty now she was calm again.

  She went on down the stairs in time to see Mary Kate bustling into the hall with lighted candles.

  “Is that you, Mrs. Lamb? It’s a fuse. Patsy’s seeing to it. Is everything all right upstairs?”

  “I haven’t been up to Mrs. O’Riordan.”

  “Then I’ll just be slipping up to take a look. Not that the poor creature would notice even if the heavens split open and all the saints fell through. And now, who’s that?”

  The great front door had opened and slammed shut. In the dim light Cathleen saw Liam standing staring up at them with a strangely white face.

  She ran down the stairs towards him.

  “Liam! Where have you been? You’re soaked.”

  His black hair was flattened in streaks, drops hung on his eyelashes. His tweed jacket was dark with wet.

  “I’ve only run up from the stables,” he said. “I didn’t realize how the rain was belting down. I got soaked just in that time.”

  “You would and all,” Mary Kate said disapprovingly. “It’s a cloudburst. Why didn’t you put a horse-blanket or something over you?”

  “Didn’t think.” Liam shook himself. “Rain doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  He blinked in the dim light.

  “Power failure?”

  “There is. Patsy’s fixing it. I’m just going up to see your mother.”

  “Liam, you look so tired,” said Cathleen.

  He rubbed the water out of his eyes.

  “Do I? I’m all right. Rory home?”

  “I don’t think so. Unless he’s in the billiard room. Do you want to go and see?”

  “In the dark? No, thanks.” He shivered. He must be cold.

  He took her hand a moment. His own was wet and chilly.

  “I didn’t mean to be so late. I was a bit upset after this afternoon. Do you forgive me for that?”

  “That!” she said lightly.

  “You don’t hate me?”

  “Good gracious, no.”

  “Then I’ll make you love me.”

  “Liam, get your wet things off. Go to bed.”

  “Yes. Yes, I must. Then I’ll see you in the morning, darling.”

  “Goodnight, Liam.”

  She watched him go, a stranger with his flattened black hair and white face. He had called her darling in that intimate way as if she belonged to him. But she had the strangest feeling he had been talking to someone else who was still deeply occupying his thoughts and making him distrait.

  If he had come all the way from Loughneath he could scarcely have been wetter…

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT WAS VERY MUCH later when Cathleen heard the sound of car wheels on gravel. Rory was home at last. Just afterwards the grandfather clock on the stairs struck three. The rain had dropped to a whisper. By dawn it had stopped.

  Cathleen got up at seven to a sparkling morning. An impulse seized her. She knew that the best way to disperse the shadows of that strange day and night was to go riding across the fields and through the rain-fresh woods. She wouldn’t wait for Liam. She preferred to go alone, anyway. The O’Riordans had become a little overpowering, and an escape for an hour would be refreshing. If Jimmy wasn’t about the stables she would saddle Macushla herself.

  The filly greeted her with nervous whickers of pleasure.

  “Now, remember, no shying at ghosts today,” Cathleen said.

  There was no one about. She saddled Macushla then, before taking her out of her loose box, went to look at Red.

  The big stallion snorted and reared. His coat gleamed rosily. He looked in the pink of condition.

  “I don’t believe you’ve been sick at all,” Cathleen said, talking to herself. She barred the door against the restless stamping horse, and saw Jimmy, the undersized stable boy, approaching.

  “Good morning, Jimmy. Red looks none the worse today.”

  The boy’s eyes were still sticky with sleep. He stared at her stupidly.

  “Did something happen to him, miss?”

  “Didn’t he have a bad chill the day before yesterday?”

  “Mr. Liam was fussing, to be sure, miss. But he’s always fussing over Red. He said nothing about any chill at all.”

  Cathleen hated herself for asking.

  “He was worried. Wasn’t he down here until late last evening?”

  “I wouldn’t be knowing, miss. I fed the horses and locked up round about sun-down. Then I went home. He might have worried about the storm upsetting them.”

  “Yes, of course. If he comes down, tell him I’ve taken Macushla, will you?”

  It was just one more thing to puzzle her. Liam couldn’t have wanted to tell her the real reason for not meeting her in Dublin. She dismissed the thought.

  At the moment she desired nothing but Macushla and the bright morning, the cool sprink
le of drops from every overhanging bough, and the green fields stretching away to the shadowy hills. She remembered something Liam had said about a small lake lying like a blue jewel beyond the woods. She would look for it. If there was no one about she might even be able to swim in it. She didn’t know, apart from the fresh morning, why she suddenly felt this resurgence of life. It was hardly logical, with the frights and false alarms she had been experiencing. But she was vividly aware of her healthy body, of the soft air on her face, of what it was like to be kissed again.

  In her imagination it was Liam’s lips that touched hers. But it was Rory’s face, brilliant and demanding, that hung over her.

  Rory was a devil, Liam—here, she couldn’t formulate her thoughts. For the charming and kind person she had known by no means fitted with the white, soaking and dishevelled man who had come in last night.

  In what state, one wondered, had Rory returned?

  The lake shone in the distance, a sapphire dropped into the fields among the rocks and the clumps of yellow gorse.

  Cathleen was delighted at finding it so easily. She let Macushla pick her way among the rocky outcrops until they reached the water’s edge. Then she dismounted, looped the reins round a jutting stone, and turned to survey the landscape.

  There was no one in sight. This was an utterly lonely spot. Only cloud shadows moved. And something else—what was that that tinkled faintly and metallically?

  Cathleen’s heart had begun to quicken even before she saw the donkey, the fat shaggy grey beast so like a small stout fussy dowager. The pots and kettles, catching the sun, hung on either side of its saddle, clashing gently as it grazed.

  So she was not alone after all. The tinker was here! He must be crouched behind some bush, peering at her, no doubt waiting to see if she would decide to undress and swim. No doubt smiling his secret lewd smile in anticipation…

  Cathleen quickly unlooped Macushla’s reins. She felt near to tears, half with vexation, half with fear. She had her foot in the stirrup before a slight movement in the pool caught her eye. Just beneath the surface of the jewel-bright water there was a log—no, a fish, for its white under-belly was visible.

  Not a fish! The white under-belly was—No, no, no! Cathleen screamed the words silently. It couldn’t be the face of a drowned man. Bleached in the water, no longer that healthy black-brown from the winds of the open road. Floating gently just beneath the darting flight of dragonflies and midges…