‘Did my grandmother go to O’Rahilly from here?’
‘She and Deirdre both. Your sister was determined that the poet should not be engaged to perform anything – what shall I say? – outrageous, or offensive to the sensibilities of others who were to be present at the marriage.’
‘Then she failed in her part,’ I said.
‘Indeed she did. That rogue managed to affront everyone at the table. But something went wrong on their way back here from seeing O’Rahilly. I cannot recall precisely, but your grandmother was much shaken by it.’
‘Something the poet had said?’ I asked, fearful that Blackstone was about to drift to another topic again.
‘Eh? No. Not that: it was later, on their journey back from engaging O’Rahilly. Some nonsense about a woman Deirdre had seen at a window, at Dunluce, or Dunseverick or some such place.’
Andrew looked up with interest. ‘Maeve MacQuillan?’
‘Aye, that was the name, I think. I paid it little heed – there is enough woman’s prattle about this house at the best of times, without adding your Irish superstitions to it.’ He sucked deeply on his pipe, but it had gone out and he did not light it again, instead heaving himself to his feet with a sigh. ‘Well, gentlemen, I must leave you, for these old bones grow weary at their work, and I must rouse them fresh and ready for the labours of the morning. Come down to the port after eleven, sir, and you may see the Carolina dock then. There is wine on the sideboard, and tobacco on the mantelshelf. Have what you will and then rest yourselves well. I bid you goodnight.’
We finished our wine in silence. Genial though our host was, we did not yet trust the inhabitants of the house. We had got candles from the girl and reached gladly to our chamber in the attic before the bell of St Patrick’s church tolled ten.
I lay on the truckle bedstead with its feather bed and bolster while Andrew made do with a coarser arrangement of blankets and pillows on the floor, having dismissed my offer of tossing a coin for the comfort with a curt, ‘I play the servant, you the master; the master does not sleep on the floor.’
The window of our garret was unshuttered, and in the frosty and cloudless night the moon cast an eerie illumination around the room, enlivening minds that should have rested.
‘What think you to our hosts?’ Andrew asked eventually.
‘That bitter wife and those stranded girls – such a powder keg of resentments. I am not much surprised that Blackstone spends his days in the outposts of the plantations. I would be in no hurry home to such a welcome. And it is a cramped house for a man of wealth.’
‘Do not be deceived. When his house at Monavagher is finished, it will be one of the grandest in the province. For all his pride in his workman’s hands, Matthew Blackstone does not intend that his family should go down in the world come the next generation.’
‘Unless the plantation falls out of favour with the king.’
Andrew drew in his breath for a moment, considering his answer. ‘I think he takes precautions to insure himself against it.’
‘What kind of precautions?’
‘Deirdre is his precaution. Deirdre and what she might bring with her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your grandfather was of the Old English. He was well respected and trusted by the English administration, and rich. His business had brought him a large estate in Down, to which my father drew many Scots settlers: the king will have no cause to escheat the lands of Richard FitzGarrett, unless they fall into the wrong hands.’
‘Sean’s,’ I said, things beginning to become clearer to me.
‘Blackstone knows rightly that Sean has no head for business, nor mind to it either. I suspect rumours of Sean’s sympathies have also come to his ears.’
‘His sympathies?’
Andrew drew in his breath, impatient almost. ‘A man who has been known to ride with the sons of Murchadh O’Neill, who is married secretly by a disguised Franciscan priest, treads a dangerous line. And should he cross that line, there will be plenty ready to swoop, and who better for the king to grant the estates to than the obedient English planter family of Sean FitzGarrett’s sister? Could the native Irish even complain? A just and satisfactory conclusion for all. Blackstone talked also tonight of the shortage of coin. When your grandfather’s debtors are called to account, there will be a great deal of coin available to whoever controls his estate.’
‘Do you think Deirdre knows any of this?’ I said quietly.
‘She is too proud to see herself a pawn in anybody’s game. The walls of this house and the lives of the women in it must be like a slow death to her.’
There was one more thing I needed to know before I could shut my mind on these matters for the night. ‘Who is Maeve MacQuillan?’ I said. ‘And why should the mention of her have upset my grandmother?’
He sighed and opened eyes that had not long since closed.
‘Long ago, before the power of the MacQuillans on this coast was usurped by the MacDonnells, the daughter of the MacQuillan chieftain was locked up by her father in a tower at Dunluce Castle, until she should come to her senses; she had refused to marry the man he had chosen for her. But the girl showed no intention of coming to her senses, and while her father paced the sands below and raged at her obstinacy, she spent her time in the tower in knitting herself a shroud. Eventually, the father relented and arranged the girl’s escape with her lover across the sea to Scotland, but their boat foundered and the pair drowned. When the father looked up at her window, he saw his daughter’s ghost look down on him; she held up her shroud and said, “See, Father, it is finished.” It is said by the superstitious that the ghost of Maeve MacQuillan still paces the room of that tower, and if anyone should chance to glance up at the window and see her there, holding her shroud, they will be dead within the year.’
‘And Deirdre saw this vision?’
He was quiet a long moment. ‘I asked the servant girl about it. She said that when your grandmother and Deirdre returned from their visit to O’Rahilly, the old woman was in a state of some distress, and little your cousin could say would pacify her. They had travelled by Dunluce on their journey back to Coleraine, and stopped there to dine. The castle is the seat of Randal MacDonnell, Earl of Antrim. Your grandmother is a distant cousin of MacDonnell’s wife, and finds a welcome in all such houses. The earl gave them a guide back to Coleraine. As they left the castle, Deirdre turned back to wave to MacDonnell’s wife, and your grandmother said she stopped cold. It was only once they were back through the gates of Coleraine and MacDonnell’s man returning to his master that she eventually broke and told the old woman what she had seen: Maeve MacQuillan at her window, holding up her shroud.’
I had no more time for superstition and tales of ghosts and their threats and promises than did Andrew, but I felt I would sleep better for the reading of the scriptures, as we had done together on occasion since my arrival in this country. Our choice had fallen on St Paul’s letter to the Romans, but the seventh chapter, where Andrew had last set his marker, gave little comfort to either of us, with its words on the law regarding married women.
‘Well, that is clear enough, I think,’ said Andrew, shutting his bible after only three verses. ‘Adultery or widowhood, the alternatives for a woman who has married where she does not love.’ His words were clipped and bitter.
I raised myself on my elbow to look at him properly. ‘Andrew,’ I began hesitantly, ‘you must believe me, for I know it for a certainty: there is a madness in men sometimes, in women too, that makes them reject what they love.’
‘Then they do not truly love.’ He turned his back on me and laid himself down to sleep.