In Sunshine Or In Shadow Page 17

  ‘I don’t want the claw, thanks.’

  ‘OK,’ Artemis replied, and took it for herself.

  ‘Isn’t OK common too?’ Ellie asked wryly.

  ‘Yes,’ Artemis told her, perfectly seriously. ‘Frightfully. That’s half the fun.’

  Artemis eyed her new friend, then they both lapsed into silence for a while, as Artemis scraped and delved into the lobster claw, and Ellie gazed around her at her new surroundings. They were new, but not strange, because as soon as she had set foot in Ireland, Ellie felt as if she had been there before, not as it were in a previous life, but in this one, as if part of her had always been in this country, waiting for the other part of her to join it. And now she felt happy, inexplicably so, but utterly and completely so.

  ‘Who is this Cousin Rose of your’s anyway?’ Artemis went on, after taking a sip of her wine. ‘She’s your mother’s cousin, isn’t that what you said?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ellie replied. ‘But that’s all I know about her. It was my brother Patsy’s idea for me to write to her. And tell her –’ Ellie stopped because Artemis had once more caught a passing waiter by his coat and ordered him to bring her another half a lobster. ‘You’ve got to stop doing that to waiters.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ asked Artemis, opening her eyes wide. ‘So what are you going to do? You’re not just going to turn up at this Cousin Rose’s? I must say it doesn’t sound the brightest of ideas. She could be dead.’

  ‘Of course she isn’t dead.’

  ‘She might be if she didn’t write back to you.’

  ‘She probably didn’t have the time.’

  ‘She probably doesn’t know how to write.’

  ‘Of course she knows how to write. Of course she’s not dead.’

  ‘All of these of courses. When you haven’t ever even spoken to your cousin.’

  ‘She writes us every Christmas.’

  ‘To us. She writes to us. You don’t write people. You write to them.’

  ‘And she wrote to us this last Christmas.’

  ‘She could have died since then.’

  ‘Would you like her to be dead, Artemis?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because then I’d have to throw myself on your tender mercies.’

  The waiter arrived and put Artemis’s second helping of lobster in front of her. ‘Grand, aren’t they now, miss?’ he said, flicking some breadcrumbs off the tablecloth with his napkin. ‘Fresh from the sea this morning. I could ate a dozen meself. And what about you, miss?’ He turned and beamed a semi-toothless smile at Ellie. ‘Go on. Have another. I won’t charge you for it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ellie smiled back at him. ‘But I really have had enough.’

  ‘May I ask where you’re from, miss?’ the waiter enquired, sticking his index finger in the empty wine bottle. ‘From what part of Americee?’

  ‘I’m from Boston,’ Ellie told him. ‘Boston Massachusetts.’

  ‘Boston, Massachusetts,’ he repeated, with a nod of his head. ‘Now there’s a thing. Sure and don’t I have a brother in Detroit?’ He wandered off with another big smile, swinging the wine bottle from the end of his finger.

  Artemis watched him go. Then she turned back to stare at Ellie. ‘Is that what your father is like?’ she asked.

  ‘No-o,’ said Ellie thoughtfully. ‘My father has more teeth. To bite you with.’

  ‘“OK”,’ Artemis began again, scooping out the meat from her second lobster. ‘What I thought was we could stay here, in the hotel –’

  ‘You just don’t listen, do you?’

  ‘Eleanor,’ Artemis continued, ignoring Ellie’s protest, ‘it need only be for the summer. Then after the summer’s over you can go to your stupid cousin’s then. And start scrubbing floors, and washing dishes, doing the laundry, or whatever it is you intend to do for the rest of your so-called life.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Ellie said, rising from the table after a moment’s silence. ‘I have to put in a telephone call to my poor dead cousin.’

  It took a good while for the various local telephone exchanges to make the connection between the Metropole Hotel, Cork and Strand House, Ballinacree, not it appeared due to any technical difficulties, but because each of the operators down the line wished to pass on the latest news and exchange the most recent gossip. After a good ten minutes delay, Cork was finally joined to the exchange at Ballinacree, and the operator asked to be connected to Ballinacree, two, five.

  ‘That’s Miss Lannigan’s number,’ the distant voice said. ‘Who’s that that’ll be wanting her?’

  ‘’Tis a young American girl,’ Cork replied. ‘Just off the liner today.’

  ‘Ah sure, that’ll be Miss Lannigan’s second cousin Miss Milligan,’ Ballinacree said, and then in a raised voice for Ellie’s benefit, ‘is that right now? Is that you, Miss Milligan?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ellie answered with some astonishment. ‘Yes, this is Eleanor Milligan.’

  ‘Ah God love you,’ the voice from Ballinacree sighed. ‘Didn’t I know your mother as a child, and wasn’t she beautiful, God rest her soul. And are you as beautiful as she, Miss Milligan? No – no ye’ve no need to say a thing, Miss Milligan, for sure won’t we be able to see for ourselves when you come on your visit? There now, that’s your cousin’s telephone ringing now.’

  ‘Your cousin’s telephone is ringing now, Miss Milligan,’ the Cork operator confirmed. ‘She shouldn’t be too long in answering now, provided, God willing, she’s at home.’

  ‘She’s never out on a Windsday,’ Ballinacree chipped in. ‘And anyway, hasn’t she just had a call from the doctor? Here she is now.’

  ‘Hulloooo?’ said another voice, faintly and rather formally. ‘This is Ballinacree twenty-five. Who is this now?’

  ‘Hullo?’ said Ellie.

  ‘Hullo, Miss Lannigan,’ said the Ballinacree operator. ‘I has your second cousin Miss Milligan on the phone from Cork.’

  ‘Have ye indeed?’ Ellie’s second cousin asked, ‘and is she there now?’

  ‘Whisht now and we’ll see, Miss Lannigan,’ Ballinacree replied. ‘Hello, Cork? Jeannie – do you still have Miss Milligan there? Or have you her lost?’

  ‘I have her still here, Marie, God love you,’ Cork confirmed, ‘and I’m putting her through now. Go ahead now, Miss Milligan. Go ahead if you will, we have Miss Lannigan waiting.’

  ‘Hullo?’ Ellie raised her voice, uncertain of the distance it had to travel. ‘Cousin Rose?’

  ‘Ah – Ellie darling,’ the voice in her ear sounded as if it were on the edge of tears. ‘Eleanor sweet is that really ye?’

  ‘It’s really me, Cousin Rose,’ Ellie replied. ‘I’m in Cork.’

  ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ Cousin Rose sighed. ‘In Cork! Who would ever have believed it?’

  ‘Did you get my letter?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘I did,’ her cousin confirmed. ‘Yes indeed I did. I got your letter, yes indeed I did.’

  Ellie waited before continuing, expecting to hear the reason why her cousin hadn’t replied. None was forthcoming. ‘I wondered whether I could come and see you?’ Ellie ventured.

  ‘Did ye ever hear the like?’ her cousin demanded to know.

  ‘I did not, Miss Lannigan,’ the Ballinacree operator replied.

  ‘Wonder indeed,’ Cousin Rose laughed. ‘Hasn’t yer bed been made up this last calendar week? You’re to come out at once. This minute.’

  ‘How do I find you, Cousin Rose?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘There’s a train to Bantry at half past three,’ Cork volunteered. ‘But she’d need to hurry.’

  ‘Didn’t she say she was in the Metropole?’ Ballinacree said. ‘Sure that’s no distance to the station.’

  ‘Oh, I’d say she’s time enough to make that easily,’ her cousin agreed, apparently forgetting Ellie was still on the line.

  ‘We’ll have Jeannie ask her,’ Ballinacree suggested.

  ‘Are you still there, Miss Milligan?’ Cork enquired. ‘’Cos
if you are, they need to know if yous is able to catch the three-thirty train to Bantry.’

  ‘I should imagine so,’ Ellie said, grinning to herself and looking at her wristwatch. ‘It’s now only two-fifteen.’

  ‘Grand,’ she heard her cousin say when the message was relayed to her. ‘Tell her I’ll send the trap to the station. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye now, Miss Lannigan,’ Ballinacree said. ‘And goodbye to you, Jeannie, and may the Lord bless you.’

  ‘God love you, Marie,’ Cork replied, ‘and God bless you too.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ Ellie said, but exactly to whom she wasn’t quite sure, for it seemed they’d all gone off the line.

  When she returned to the dining room, Artemis was gone, too. Assuming this was because she’d been away too long, and discovering from the waiter that she’d paid the bill, Ellie went in search of her friend, expecting to find her in the lounge or the lobby, sitting in an armchair, absorbed as always by some book or other. But there was no sign of her anywhere.

  ‘Now this would be the young lady from England,’ the desk clerk recalled, ‘in the maroon suit and walking stick.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ellie, wondering why she had begun to panic, because she had already learned in their brief association how totally unpredictable Artemis could be. ‘Did she book a room here?’ she asked.

  ‘No, miss,’ the clerk said, having consulted his ledger. ‘No, no, no. No there’s not a single booking anywhere. Devil the one. Just the two single ladies from Tralee.’

  Ellie checked with the porter to see if Artemis’s luggage had gone, but her four cases were still there with Ellie’s two, lined up in a row in a room off the foyer. Having discovered she would be well advised to leave at least half an hour to get from the hotel to the station and on to the train, Ellie sat down in the lobby to wait.

  Artemis didn’t come back. At five to three Ellie wrote a note leaving her cousin’s telephone number and explaining where she was going, and then, having waited until the clock in the lobby had finally marked the hour, climbed into the waiting cab, and left to catch her train. As the cab drove through the streets of the city, Ellie sat on the edge of her seat staring out of the window in the vague hope of catching sight of Artemis, but there was no sign of her anywhere. Several times she thought she should get the driver to return her to the hotel, so that she could ring and postpone her visit to Ballinacree. But in a way, she decided, that would be giving in. Artemis had wilfully abandoned her without leaving any indication as to her whereabouts. Whereas Ellie had left her a note explaining in full where she herself was to be. If Artemis was bothered, she’d call Ellie at her cousin’s, and come and visit. And if she didn’t bother to do just that, then she wasn’t really worth bothering about.

  As it happened, the moment Ellie relaxed and sat back in her cab, she passed right by Artemis. But she would not have seen her, for Artemis was sitting one floor up in offices belonging to Neill and O’Dwyer, a firm of lawyers who specialized in the letting of properties. As Ellie’s cab passed below the office windows, Mr O’Dwyer was just putting on the desk in front of Lady Artemis Deverill details of a most charming small house which was for rent on the shores of Lough Caragh.

  The place where Cousin Rose lived was nothing like Ellie had imagined it. In her mind’s eye she had visualized a small whitewashed cottage, set among the rocks and bog, with the smoke curling up to the sky, like the pictures of Ireland she had seen in books. For her second cousin on her mother’s side must surely be poor, Ellie imagined, as were most people living in the Irish countryside.

  Cousin Rose’s annual Christmas letter never gave her or Patsy any hint of her standing in the community. They were random, full of snippets of family gossip, or news of Milligan relatives. Her father never said anything indicative about his dead wife’s cousin, except ‘Poor old Cousin Rose.’ So Ellie had imagined exactly that. A poor woman, and an old one, which left her totally unprepared for the sight she saw ahead of her now as the pony and trap swung off the country road and up a long potholed drive. For there at the top was a beautiful old grey stone house. There were steps leading up to the front door, either side of which were stone pillars, half sunk in the stonework. Above the door was a glass fanlight, and the windows of the house itself were long and delicately latticed, the sills of the ones on the ground floor hidden behind an uncontrolled tumble of bright spring flowers. Lawns ran up to the house from where the drive turned its last corner, the last part of the grass rising steeply as a bank, up to a terrace where a woman sat under the shade of a huge umbrella, although by now it was early evening and the sun was beginning to set.

  Standing slightly behind the woman, whose age Ellie was as yet unable to determine, was a man of immense height in what looked like an old fashioned frock-coat, pin-striped pants, and a bowler hat. As the driver pulled the trap into the carriage sweep, and drew up in front of the house, Ellie could see that the man was also wearing an old pair of rubber gardening boots, which seemed to have had their top halves hacked off with a knife or a pair of scissors, or at least so Ellie surmised from their ragged edges.

  Neither the woman nor the man moved as the trap drew to a halt. Then the woman put one lace-mittened hand up to shade her eyes against the sun which was setting in the sky behind the trap, and peered out from under her hand at Ellie.

  ‘Hulloooo?’ she called in enquiry. ‘Is that ye, Eleanor?’

  ‘Cousin Rose?’ Ellie called back, as the driver helped her down the steps of the trap.

  ‘It is, Tutti, it is!’ the woman said, turning to the man behind her. ‘Will ye just look at her!’ She rose and brushing down her skirts, stood for a moment with one hand to her cheek, before walking to meet Ellie with open arms.

  ‘I’d never have thought it,’ she said, having embraced Ellie and now holding her away from her to take a good look. ‘Ye even have yer mother’s eyes. Will ye look at this now, Tutti?’ She turned back to the man who was still standing by the abandoned chair. ‘Come over here, man, and see for yerself.’

  ‘I will not,’ said the man from where he stood. ‘I’ll do no such thing.’

  ‘I have eyes like you, Cousin Rose,’ Ellie said, looking at her relative, a fine, handsome woman in only her middle-age, nowhere near as ancient as Ellie had imagined her to be. ‘They’re just the same colour. Grey, with brown flecks. Patsy has them, too.’

  ‘Trouts’ eyes,’ her cousin told her, squeezing Ellie by the shoulders. ‘Lannigan eyes. Dear heavens, but you’re yer mother’s likeness. When I saw the trap drawin’ up, I thought ye were a spook. I did. Didn’t I, Tutti? Didn’t I say to you my God! ‘Tis this ghost of my cousin!’

  ‘You did not,’ said the man, still unmoving, ‘you said no such thing.’

  ‘Pay no attention to Tutti,’ Cousin Rose advised Ellie, as she took her arm and led her up to the house. ‘He’s in a fret because I took tea outside.’

  ‘I am not,’ said the man from behind them. ‘I’m in no such thing.’

  ‘You should have been a parrot, Tutti!’ Cousin Rose called back over her shoulder. ‘Not a butler!’ She drew Ellie closer to her and smiled in confidence. ‘Ye’ll not mind him now. He’s a heart of gold, he has, but he has a piece of steel in his head. From the war.’

  They were up the steps now and Cousin Rose swung open the front door.

  ‘This place is just beautiful,’ Ellie said, turning back to have another look out across the lawns and grounds which ran practically into the sea itself. ‘It is. This really is heaven.’

  ‘Ah. Well. Ye’ve come at a good time,’ her cousin said. ‘For the garden’s in a grand old mood.’

  They stood in silence for a moment, looking at the lush vegetation, the purple and green hills beyond, and the last sparkle of the day dancing on the waves of the distant sea.

  ‘Now,’ said Cousin Rose, breaking the spell, ’ye’ll be in need of a wash and brush up, and then we’ll have a drink or two, and we’ll hear how everything’s been since the very beginn
ing. And what sort of business it is that has brought ye here.’

  She kissed Ellie suddenly and fondly, and Ellie felt suffused with a feeling she had never known.

  ‘There,’ her cousin said. ‘Tutti’ll show you to your room and bring up yer things.’

  ‘I will not,’ the butler said, arriving at the door and heading for the stairs armed with Ellie’s two cases. ‘I’ll do no such thing.’

  ‘He went right through the war, ye know,’ Cousin Rose confided to Ellie as her butler passed them by. ‘With devil the scratch. Only God help him to be shot in the head in the second battle of the Marne. Sure that’s no sort of luck. No sort of luck at all.’

  Ellie paused at the foot of the stairs, before turning back to her cousin. ‘I’m so glad to be here, at last,’ she said softly, ‘Cousin Rose’.

  ‘Will ye not call me cousin now?’ her relative demanded. ‘It’s Rose or it’s nothing.’

  ‘OK, Rose,’ Ellie smiled. ‘But I’m still real glad to be here.’

  Rose watched her young relation go up the stairs, and then called after her. ‘When yer mother was a girl, Eleanor!’ she said. ‘Did you know? Did your father not tell ye – people used to stand on stone walls to see her pass by!’

  As Ellie and her second cousin Rose were sitting in the drawing room having their second glass of sherry, the butler came in, dressed as he was before, except for his rubber gardening boots which he had exchanged for a pair of old felt bedroom slippers, and rang a small brass gong which he held aloft in one hand. He struck it forcibly but without success. No sound came.

  ‘Dinner,’ he announced adding as an apparent afterthought, ‘madams.’

  ‘Don’t pay the slightest attention to that,’ Cousin Rose warned Ellie as she saw Ellie trying to hurry through her drink. ‘We’ve a good half-hour yet.’

  There were no lights on in the room, although the sun was all but finally set. Ellie could barely make out her surroundings, and yet she felt comfortable and at ease. The chair she sat in was upholstered in velvet, and the round table by her side was also draped in the heavy material, topped off by a fine lace cloth. On it were various framed photographs, of whom or what Ellie had no idea since it was too dark to see, and a big vase simply spilling over with late spring flowers. The french windows at the west end of the room were still open, and a cool breeze blew in off the sea, bringing with it the heady evening scent of columbine, mixed with the tang of the brine.