‘Everyone’s leaving the country,’ sighed the old man, dropping his chin into the layers of frieze round his wrinkled neck, like a tortoise preparing to withdraw its head into its shell.

  Ballygowan began in broken pavements and dirty thatched cottages, and straggled loosely up a low hill towards a main street lined with naked trees and boasting a single building of consequence: a whitewashed convent set in a large garden. The scores of broken windows, invariable donkey carts, and familiar crooked lettering above the windows of the shops, reminded Clinton of a hundred other villages. There was no hotel, only a place half inn, half whisky-shop. Clinton told the driver to stop there. Apart from a few women buying bullocks’ hearts and other scraps of meat from a stall, and three men trying to force a large sow into a cart, the place was deserted.

  Clinton entered the inn, hoping to find a farmer or two who might talk a bit after a few drinks about the local priests; but the only inmates were a couple of women behind the bar, dandling a baby boy and crooning to him. Clinton went out again and beckoned to his driver. A carman was as likely to know all the local gossip as anybody else.

  ‘Come and have a whisky negus.’

  The old man looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘Is it making a fool of me you are, sorr?’

  ‘Get down and come in.’

  By the time they reached the bar, the younger of the two women had slipped down her dress and was suckling the child.

  ‘Shame on you, Mary Skully,’ said the old man in his thin peevish voice. ‘Making a show of yourself before strangers.’

  ‘And shame on you too, you old fool.’

  ‘If you were my daughter …’

  ‘I’d be on the streets with the rest,’ she replied without rancour.

  The old man spat into the turf fire and sat down on a bench by the window while Clinton asked for their drinks.

  ‘I’ll have to be heating the water for negus and we’ve no lemon,’ said the older woman.

  ‘Then bring the whisky neat.’

  As they drank together, Clinton saw his companion’s lined face slowly softening. He jerked his head in the direction of the women.

  ‘The devil a bit of use talking to the likes of them,’ he muttered, draining his glass, and saying, when Clinton called for another: ‘More power to your honour. May your heart never stop beating.’

  After talking about horses and the hard life of a carman in winter, Clinton’s driver became more confiding and spoke of the wife and six children he had to support.

  ‘On seven shillings a week, your honour. Just that to keep ’em all and put dacent clothes on me back for driving gintry like yourself. No wonder I’m only the wreck of the man I was.’

  But in spite of the weary maudlin voice, Clinton detected a gleam of cunning in the old hooded eyes. Gentlemen did not buy drinks for carmen and talk to them without good reason. Clinton folded his arms, and said, without wasting further time:

  ‘I want to find a priest who’d dispense with marriage banns for a consideration.’

  ‘And would your honour be considering an old man with devil a shilling to lay by for his childer?’

  ‘Your children must have left home years ago.’

  ‘As God’s my witness, I married late in life.’

  Clinton did not bother to reply but took two sovereigns from his pocket and placed them by his glass. The man eyed them with eager longing, and cried out excitedly to the girl:

  ‘Haven’t I six childer, Mary?’

  ‘And six cows beside,’ she said lightly, taking her nipple from the child’s gums.

  The old man leapt up and clenched his fleshless hands. His lips were drawn back in a snarl and he shook his shrivelled head from side to side. Clinton took his arm firmly.

  ‘I don’t care if you’ve six or sixty children. Find me a priest who likes money as well as you, and you’ll get what you want.’

  Clinton swept up the coins and returned them to his pocket. The girl, who had evidently been listening to the conversation, hitched up her dress and came over to them.

  ‘Father Phelan’s your man, sir,’ she said, patting the baby’s back.

  ‘You keep to your own,’ shouted the old man, clutching the edge of the table. Ignoring him, Clinton looked attentively at the dark skinned girl.

  ‘Would he marry a couple without many questions?’

  ‘Saving the fee, your honour,’ she replied, smiling as the infant burped loudly.

  ‘Enough,’ roared the carman.

  ‘Why isn’t he particular?’ asked Clinton.

  ‘He wouldn’t marry Kate Deacy to Colm Higgins for a pound. Three pounds or nothing, says he. So they went against him and lived under the one roof, and Colm blamed their sin on him, so he had to marry them for a pound, and now never a soul in the parish will pay a penny more than Colm. And his reverence’s power over the people is gone from him entirely.’

  The old man drew himself up and laughed derisively into his glass.

  ‘As true a priest as any in Ireland. Now Father Maguire, there’s the man for your honour.’ He thumped the table and faced the woman, stabbing the air with a crooked finger. ‘Isn’t his church roof fallen in and the builders gone with it half mended? Wasn’t he selling indulgences and scapulars and still not enough money to finish it? And the plaster’s off the walls with the wet, and the people all going to Lisnama for Mass because of God’s curse on their church and the cold in it.’ The old man looked at Clinton triumphantly. ‘What does your honour say to that?’

  Clinton did not reply but took out a penny, making it plain that he was going to toss it.

  ‘Let the woman call,’ jeered the carman, hiding his tension.

  As Clinton flipped up the coin, the woman called out:

  ‘Heads.’

  The old man bent low over the stained table, watching in agony as the coin hit the wood, wobbled, tilted and finally fell.

  ‘Tails it is,’ screamed the carman, dancing a few shuffling steps in his large hobnailed boots. ‘The darling,’ he cried, raising the coin to his lips and handing it back to Clinton.

  ‘If you’re wrong, we’ll try the other.’

  ‘Never a fear of it,’ chuckled the old man. ‘Never a fear.’

  It was four miles from Ballygowan to Father Maguire’s church at Rathnagar but Clinton did not resent the slow and bumpy ride. He felt well pleased with his morning’s work. His guess that he would fare better in the country than in Dublin already seemed likely to prove correct. Here in the villages, where congregations were smaller and poorer, the priests would take less door money after Mass and receive lower fees for their offices. Whether some would therefore be more helpfully disposed towards rich strangers than were their better provided colleagues in the city, remained to be seen. Though Clinton had not said any more to Theresa about marriage, he was determined not to be taken by surprise if she accepted him. It was not his intention to allow her time for further reflection.

  *

  There was a silence in the room while the priest stood thinking. From the window of Father Maguire’s parlour, the west end of the church was only a dozen yards away, hemmed about with wooden scaffolding. Clinton looked from the gilt paper cope round a saint’s effigy on the mantelpiece to the priest’s ruddy face. Wiry hairs sprouted from his ears and nostrils, and the backs of his muscular hands were well covered with a thick black fuzz. He crossed the room and sat down, resting his arms on the breviary on his writing desk.

  ‘The bishop can dispense with the banns right enough, but it’s a special favour he’d be conferring.’ He looked searchingly at Clinton. ‘He’d only do it if you invoke the prayers of the poor by way of an offering.’

  ‘Tell me the normal fee.’

  ‘You’ll know the story of the widow’s mite?’ Maguire paused, wrinkling his bushy eyebrows which reminded Clinton of furry caterpillars. ‘Will you say why you come here to be married?’

  ‘My family consider the lady unsuitable. She has no fortune. I have to keep it dark.’

  ‘Your family are Protestants?’

  ‘I’m no Protestant myself. My mother’s mother was converted to Catholicism. I’ve some Catholic cousins. The lady I want to marry is a Catholic.’ Clinton stopped, afraid that he had appeared overanxious.

  ‘You’d agree to any children being brought up Catholics?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There must be extenuation in that,’ murmured the priest, as if to reassure himself. Until then, Clinton had felt apprehensive, but this remark made him more confident. The priest cupped his heavy chin in the palm of a hand. ‘It’s a great hindrance you can’t declare yourself a Catholic.’

  ‘Won’t you help me otherwise?’

  Maguire sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

  ‘I’d marry you myself as happy as you like but there’s a legal difficulty.’ His thick eyebrows came together. ‘Isn’t that why you came to an out of the way place?’

  Clinton shook his head.

  ‘I knew I’d have trouble anywhere if I didn’t say I was a Catholic. I thought a country priest might be more sympathetic.’

  ‘It’s more than sympathy you’re wanting. It’s a felony I’m guilty of if I marry a Protestant to a Catholic. I’m thinking you knew that, sir.’

  After a silence, Clinton said:

  ‘I’d heard that used to be so. I honestly thought those sort of laws had been changed years ago.’ The priest said nothing. Very close to giving up, Clinton made a last effort. ‘I told you I’m not a Protestant. I’ve not been to church for years. So how can the law apply?’

  ‘I can’t be taking the risk.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to make an entry in your register.’ He smiled at the man’s troubled face. ‘You can’t think you’d be unfrocked.’

  Maguire laughed gloomily.

  ‘Unfrocked is it? There’s not a stitch of clothing they’d leave on me if you turn out a Protestant. You could walk out on your wife and the law wouldn’t stop you. A convenient sort of marriage for scoundrels.’

  ‘But if I say I’m a Catholic … that exonerates you?’

  The priest remained silent, evidently weighing various considerations. At last he met Clinton’s eyes.

  ‘I’d renew a previous consent for you.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘If you’ve been to the register office with her, I’ll renew the consent you gave there.’

  ‘Will your ceremony take the form of a church marriage?’

  ‘Sure it will.’

  Clinton frowned.

  ‘How can a previous ceremony add anything to a wedding in church? A marriage is a marriage in my view.’

  ‘That’s my opinion, too,’ replied Maguire blandly.

  ‘Then why bother with anything else?’

  ‘To protect myself.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘If there’s trouble later, I can say I gave a blessing to a marriage already entered into. For the lady’s peace of mind, you understand.’ The priest lowered his head and then looked at Clinton gravely. ‘Did you make a civil contract with the lady?’

  Clinton hesitated. Yet how could the lie be worth the name, when the man was actually inviting it? Vows spoken in church in perfect faith could not be affected by such petty quibbles. He folded his arms.

  ‘I made a civil contract.’

  ‘Would you say you did before a witness?’ Clinton shook his head, watching the priest tensely. A long silence passed. Maguire gazed out of the window and then rose abruptly. ‘Very well. I’ll trust you. When are you planning on coming?’

  ‘Is three days too soon?’

  ‘If it’s Sunday you’re coming on, you’d best not be later than an hour before Mass. I’d be obliged if you’d pay the fee now. You can make it twenty pounds.’ The priest spoke rapidly as if eager to be done with the matter in case his doubts returned. Sensing this, Clinton counted the notes without argument and placed them on the mantelpiece. A new thought set his conscience at rest. The law could be no threat since the only possible reason for invoking it would be a desire on his part to renegue on the marriage; a course, he told himself, he would die before contemplating. Leaving the house, he laughed suddenly. The interview he had just undergone would seem pretty stupid if she turned him down. His smile died a moment later and with a set expression he stepped out into the sunshine.

  As the carman ran up eagerly, Clinton dipped into his pockets, and without further ado, slapped the sovereigns into his hand. The old man crossed himself and dropped the coins into his waistcoat pocket. Then beaming with happiness, he struck his chest two mighty blows with his fists and danced round Clinton with sudden little steps.

  ‘’twas God sent you,’ he shouted, ‘for saving the church and helping a poor man. Three cheers for the bride … Hurrah!’ He stopped dancing, and sweeping off his battered hat, bowed ceremoniously to Clinton as he stepped up into the car. Then with the agility of a man of twenty, he leapt up onto the box and whipped up the horse to a canter, so that Clinton had to hold on with all his might to avoid being jolted out onto the rutted track.

  20

  After the darkness and the long wait in the packed procession of carriages crawling up Cork Hill to the Castle gates, the brilliance of light and colour at the foot of the grand staircase was dazzling. Divested of wraps and cloaks, naked female shoulders shone white as ivory under the blazing gaslight of opulently twisted candelabra. High on the white panelled walls, the burnished blades of hundreds of swords, arranged in star patterns, flashed as brightly as the chandeliers. Like tall statues ranged facing each other all the way up the staircase were uniformed guardsmen, whose dripping faces under their bearskins matched the scarlet of their coats. Footmen in powdered wigs and purple livery tailcoats stood on every landing, watching the ascending wave of humanity with expressionless eyes, indifferent alike to aigrettes and epaulettes.

  ‘Don’t introduce me to anybody unless it would be rude not to,’ murmured Theresa as they reached the foot of the stairs. Clinton made no reply but looked around him with the eye of a man surprised suddenly to find himself mixing with the cast of a pantomime. ‘And no cynicism,’ she said, emphasising her point with a swift touch of her elbow. She had never been to a court ball, and her lover’s gold-braided uniform and campaign medals filled her with pride and an emotional tightness in the throat. Certain that such an evening would never be repeated, she wanted to be able to look back on it with simple wonder. Yet even before they reached St Patrick’s Hall, she read the sadness and envy on young girls’ faces and the silent determination stamped on the features of their mothers. Strangest of all was the sight of women, some older than herself, meekly submitting to the guiding nudges of chaperons, as if numbed into inanity by memories of past failures on the Castle’s waxed and polished floors. The fashion for sleeveless low-cut dresses was merciless to bony shoulders, and mandatory long white gloves tortured those with fat arms. The fight for eligible marriage partners was not a struggle that favoured the faint-hearted.

  Since Clinton had first asked her to marry him, so unconcerned had he seemed about all serious matters that at times she could scarcely believe that the subject had ever been raised. Yet she knew him well enough to recognise his hallmark. Too proud to show resentment; disdainful of bargaining or compromise, he would remain silent until presenting her with a final choice. When that time came he would not spare her. Knowing what answer she ought to give, it still terrified her that her will might break. It had been to achieve just this that he had let her know in advance that if she would not give everything, then he would accept nothing. And every day that he maintained his nonchalance, and she dared not broach the subject, a few more threads of resolution frayed and parted.

  As they passed a panting dowager, squeezed by a miracle of tight-lacing into a dress that seemed made for a woman half her size, Clinton said quietly with the easy humour that had now become his mask:

  ‘The survival of the fattest by unnatural adaptation.’ Theresa looked at him reprovingly but he only laughed. ‘It really is like Darwin’s theory. Only the strong survive the struggle; the female’s never more vulnerable than when guarding her young.’

  ‘And never more dangerous,’ whispered Theresa, as they entered a long drawing room where the Louis XV furniture had been pushed back against the walls, providing seats for the weary but not impeding the passing throng. Clinton had been looking for somebody, and at last hailed an officer in a uniform identical to his own. Approaching at a leisurely pace, the soldier inclined his head slightly to Theresa. Clinton turned to her formally.

  ‘Mrs Barr, permit me to introduce Captain Lambert.’ They shook hands and Lambert looked at Theresa appraisingly. Clinton continued: ‘If duty calls, Dick could you …?’ He glanced at Theresa.

  ‘I should be delighted, milord.’

  ‘Do I need a chaperon?’ asked Theresa; a smile masking real irritation.

  ‘Captain Lambert has a fund of entertaining anecdotes.’ The two men smiled at one another and Clinton asked in a stage whisper: ‘Have you danced with our colonel’s lady?’

  ‘I have and her hooves have lost none of their power.’

  ‘Have you never trodden on toes?’ asked Theresa.

  Lambert grinned affably.

  ‘Figuratively, Mrs Barr, but not physically.’

  A débutante and her mother came up to them and greeted Lambert, who made the necessary introductions. The girl was fingering her dance card anxiously, eyes liquid with invitation.

  ‘Perhaps I might have the honour of your next waltz, Miss Tyne?’ asked Lambert with a hesitance owing more, Theresa guessed, to reluctance than to bashfulness.

  ‘Yes indeed.’ The young lady flushed as she looked at the few scribbled names on her card. ‘Oh dear, I’m afraid it’s already promised. Perhaps the …’ She caught her mother’s eye and looked down miserably.

  Lambert gave a convincing show of disappointment.

  ‘The one after is a polka, I seem to recall from the programme. A shame my only dances are the waltz and the galop.’