Edge of Glass Page 18

  Eight

  The loud, angry tones ‒ Connor’s voice ‒ reached down the stairwell to me. I had left Annie and Bridget in the kitchen, and passed Mrs. O’Shea on her way to have her morning coffee there; I knew it was towards none of them that Connor’s anger was directed. That left just Lady Maude. I started to run. Half-way up the stairs I heard her voice ‒ far too loud and forced. The hideous memory of the night when I had been wakened by these same two voices, and the memory of Lady Maude sprawled sideways in her bed when the shouting had stopped, didn’t permit me any choice about not interfering. I couldn’t pretend now that it wasn’t my concern; the time of polite unconcern was long over. Words became distinguishable now.

  ‘… what rights I have! I’ve earned every right there is … sweated my guts out!’

  Without knocking I threw open the door. The sounds stopped.

  Connor stood at the end of the bed. There was the look of smothered fierceness in his very stance that now appeared to me too familiar; it was the everyday companion with whom Connor seemed to dwell.

  ‘Well …?’ He had turned; his skin was drained of all colour. There was left just the startling blackness of eyes and brows and hair.

  I closed the door, taking my time about it, and making the action very definite and soft so that it would give them a moment’s pause. ‘You can’t do this,’ I said. I kept my voice low but it wavered a little; I hadn’t realised until now how frightened I was. ‘This is what started it last time ‒ this shouting at one another.’

  ‘… not your concern, Maura … I will handle this …’ It was hard to recognise it as the voice of the woman I had heard raised in anger a minute ago. The words came in a half-whisper, strength deserting her suddenly. I sensed that what she said had been said automatically, out of the habit of command, not now from a desire to exercise it. With her hand she attempted an imitation of the peremptory gesture she used so often, but it came only as a feeble wave. I moved closer to the bed; her face was greyish, drawn. She had seemed so much better when I had visited her earlier that morning; abruptly the gain had been wiped out.

  ‘It has to be my concern,’ I answered. ‘I can’t stand by and let the same thing happen again. For as long as I’m here, whether you want it or not, I have to be concerned ‒ to be responsible.’ As I spoke a strange expression had crossed the old lady’s face; the features relaxed from their exhausted tautness; for an instant the eyelids fluttered closed, and her head seemed to settle back into the pillow. Then her eyes opened again, much wider, and she appeared to flash at Connor a look of triumph, as if to make sure that he marked that she had won a champion ‒ however improbable I seemed in that role, and however little in need of one she seemed to be.

  He had not missed it, this sudden unexpected closing of ranks. He had two adversaries instead of one; I felt my own courage restored by the fact that he took one single backward step, away from the bed.

  ‘Lady Maude is right ‒ it’s not your concern. This is a purely family matter.’

  But at this moment he couldn’t wedge us free of the unlikely bond that had been formed. The whisper came from the bed, more dominating than any shout. ‘… my granddaughter!’

  They stared at each other for a moment, Lady Maude and Connor, and it was Connor who turned away. He shrugged. ‘As you wish …’ I watched him go to the window and stand there staring out at nothing. He wanted to go, to leave the old lady to her victory, but he would not go and give possession to me. The silence was long, the room very still. I didn’t know what to do; I couldn’t leave because I guessed that Connor might return to the argument I had interrupted, and yet I wasn’t comfortable in this sudden intimacy with Lady Maude; I had joined forces with her because I had to, not because I wanted to. I walked over to where Mrs. O’Shea had left a Dublin morning newspaper on a chair, picked it up, and so gave Connor notice that I was prepared to stay.

  The silence was ended by Annie’s knock on the door. She put her head in, her expression apprehensive and excited. ‘There you are, Miss Maura. It’s Mr. Praeger. He’s come for you, Miss.’

  I put down the newspaper, aware of the agitated flutter of Lady Maude’s hands. ‘Come for me? Why?’

  ‘To take you to the glassworks. That’s what he said. “Tell Miss D’Arcy I’ve come to take her to the glassworks”.’ And then, as if to quieten Lady Maude, she added, ‘He wouldn’t come in. He’s sitting outside in his car.’

  ‘Well, blast him!’ The anger was all to the surface again in Connor. ‘Who the hell does he think he is? If Miss D’Arcy cares to see the glassworks, I’ll take her. Whose glassworks does he think they are?’

  The whisper from the bed overpowered us all. ‘Not your glassworks, Connor ‒ not yet!’

  II

  Long before I had got my coat and gone downstairs to Otto Praeger, I heard Connor’s car leaving; the tyres squealed and it bumped in the ruts of the avenue. Praeger climbed stiffly from the back of the big grey Mercedes to greet me; O’Keefe stood holding the door, his exaggerated chauffeur manner ruined by the wide grin on his face.

  ‘I thought we should make a little expedition,’ Praeger said. He did not refer to Connor’s departure. ‘I hear that Lady Maude is recovering, and that your presence is not required all the time.’ He was stowing me in the luxurious depths of the back seat, rather as if I had been a child, buttoning me up, nodding to O’Keefe through the glass partition that he could now start. It was Praeger in his authoritative role, with small sign of the gnome; I guessed that Lotti must have often revolted against the paternal assurance of rightness. It was a little shocking to find myself suddenly thinking with some understanding of a woman who had been dead before I ever heard her name. But I let Praeger have his way, not offering any revolt of my own, because I guessed that there was a grieving for Lotti in this man which could find no other expression than that of fussing over some other young woman who bore a chance resemblance to his daughter.

  Cloncath was a gently mannered town with a clean river running through it, spanned by three picture-book bridges and, on the modest height above it, giving a view to the estuary, a superb Georgian crescent where the town’s professional men now lived and worked. It was grey, as Irish towns generally are, but graced by the softness of the countryside, and by its own close relation to the human scale. Beyond the sea was Wales, and Praeger directed O’Keefe to drive up on the Crescent to give me a sight of its distant mountains. ‘But, as usual,’ Praeger said, ‘it cannot be seen.’ We paused and looked for a moment at the slope of the town beneath us, the chimney pots, the curls of smoke going idly into the still air, the shining river, the white ruffled sea. With his cane, Praeger indicated it all. ‘These people have known great tragedy ‒ hunger and persecution, the dominance of foreign rulers. But they have not yet suffered the ugliness of the modern age. They will come to it, of course, as they grow more prosperous. Then they will no longer have salmon in the clean waters in the middle of their towns, and the trout will all die. But not yet ‒ not yet, I hope.’

  It sounded strange to hear it spoken in this thick accent, the echo of the words Lady Maude had whispered. ‘Not yet.’ They were the old, holding back, and with some knowledge of what they did. Praeger added: ‘Next week I go to New York. As I look on the temple of money and materialism, I will know even better why I come here ‒ why I hope for a time that this can survive. I am selfish. I would like it to last until I die.’ Then he rapped on to the partition. ‘Come ‒ we will go to the glassworks.’

  The Sheridan glassworks were in Glasshouse Lane, which opened off the main square. In the square was the courthouse-jail, built by the English and disguised as a Greek temple; there was a cinema, and the shops of the local merchants; from the looks of it cattle had recently passed through ‒ not quite as tidy as an English town, and more individual. One of the streets from the square gave a glimpse down to the river and the quays, the small fleet of trawlers. At Tyrell and Meremount there was little sense of being so close to the sea, but
Cloncath felt like a sea-coast town; the smell of the sea was here, the smell of fish, the sea-gulls swooping overhead with the flash of white wings and their plaintive cries. ‘Sheridan settled here because there was easy access to the English ports for his glass,’ Praeger said as we turned in the big wooden gates marked SHERIDAN GLASS. ‘Waterford, of course, is by far the better port, but he couldn’t set up under the nose of Waterford Glass.’ We were in a long, narrow yard, paved in brick, with old two-storey buildings on each side. Connor’s car was parked before a prefabricated building of light blue steel and glass, there were two entrances marked Museum and Office.

  ‘This,’ Praeger said, indicating the modern building, ‘is as far as Lotti got with the new Sheridan Glass. There were plans to tear down all the old buildings ‒ which I did not approve. There was a tendency to move too quickly …’ At the door of the museum Connor waited for us. ‘Good morning, Mr. Praeger,’ he said. ‘How good of you to bring my cousin to see our humble little operation here.’ Praeger gave an old-fashioned half-bow. ‘Entirely my pleasure, I assure you.’

  The museum was too elegant for its surroundings, the floor covered in dark grey carpet, the walls in charcoal felt, the windows blocked out so that the only light came from the fixtures built into the showcases. Against the darkness, the crystal glowed like moonlit frost coating a bare winter field. There was a pretty young receptionist who greeted Praeger with awe and me with curiosity. She hurried to push forward for my inspection a big bound book whose first few pages were filled with press cuttings. ‘This was when we opened the museum last year, Miss D’Arcy.’ I saw the headline of a long article in the Irish Times, A RENAISSANCE FOR SHERIDAN GLASS. The next page was photographs, obviously of a press reception of the museum. I caught a glimpse of Connor and Praeger, smiling unnaturally, and of a young woman, very blonde. Connor reached across and closed the book. ‘Miss D’Arcy can see that some other time, Daisy,’ he said.

  ‘Come,’ Praeger said. ‘I will show you.’

  I was shown, and I saw, and afterwards I could have recited only a very little of what I had been told. The encounter between Connor and Praeger at the door of the museum was the beginning of a tug-of-war between them that continued as long as the tour of the works, with myself in the middle. Praeger led me about the museum, less humble about his knowledge than he had been when he had shown me his own collection at Tyrell. He led me along the display cases that held Sheridan’s own glass ‒ pieces made by the master himself, beginning about 1720 when he finished his apprenticeship. There were pieces blown by his sons here at Cloncath, and some of his master glassblowers; there was one piece by a grandson, and more from blowers of his generation. ‘You see ‒ about 1820 it all dwindles off,’ Praeger said. ‘The same pattern repeated and repeated, with nothing new attempted. The learned skills are not lost, but fewer care to learn them, and there is little inspiration. Sheridan Glass barely stays alive.’

  ‘But it did stay alive,’ Connor interrupted. ‘It did ‒ and it will.’

  There was something ominous and a little malicious in Praeger’s refusal to support what Connor had said; the silence carried its own damnation. To break the strain of that silence I moved ahead of them both to the display case at the end of the row; I guessed it had been intended as an extra space to hold the new designs that Lotti and Connor and Brendan had planned would come from Sheridan in the future. It was not empty, however. Side by side, as I saw them matched for the first time, were the two Culloden Cups.

  ‘It’s here!’ I said. I turned back to Connor. ‘You brought it here!’

  He shrugged. ‘Isn’t it safer here? Would you have me put it with all the other things at Meremount ‒ everything piled up, waiting to be broken. It belongs here.’

  ‘But I haven’t given it ‒ yet.’

  He shrugged again. ‘I didn’t say you had. I merely said it’s safer here.’

  Pressing my nose against the case I stared at the two goblets ‒ the simple shape, the delicate, intricate stem, the symbolic pattern of the handles that now seemed burned into my memory. ‘Which is which?’ I said. Badly now I wanted the reassurance of identifying the one that Blanche had discovered and cherished, the one that Brendan had handled with such knowledge and reverence. I felt a terrible sense of loss and frustration as I gazed at these two identical goblets.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Connor’s tone was faintly mocking, as if he guessed and enjoyed my fear. ‘You’ll get your own one back. A glassmaker can tell the difference.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said, as I responded to Praeger’s tug on my arm and he led me across the room.

  ‘On this side is Thomas Sheridan’s own collection of glass. In my opinion it is one of the finest collections of Venetian glass at its greatest period in the world. It has never been evaluated … Here a quick look to Connor, somewhat accusing. I guessed that Praeger wanted very much to own the Sheridan Collection. ‘Sheridan was not a rich man, you understand, but he was a famous, and respected glassblower, and pieces came into his hands from other glassblowers, and so here …’ He led me down the room, past the fragile, beautiful objects that were the mementoes of Sheridan’s own passion for his art ‒ the goblets, plates, beakers, the dish that looked like a cake-stand which Praeger told me was called a tazza ‒ coloured, gilded, diamond-point engraved, embellished, some of the goblets standing on the traditional dragon-stem or the horse-stem.

  ‘Two of the most beautiful examples of latticinio I have ever seen,’ Praeger said, pointing to a covered goblet and a tazza, both with the woven white mesh captured within them which had always fascinated me, and which, I now realised, I had never bothered to enquire about from Blanche. She would have known how it was done, of course.

  Praeger’s instruction had gone on. ‘You see, they blew a gather of glass into a mould where the straight canes of white glass had already been set vertically. The vessel is then twisted, and the canes also twist, so … They build up the lacy texture by blowing the gather up further in a second mould, also containing white canes. It required the most masterly craftsmanship …’ He tapped the display case with his finger, and I sensed how he yearned to touch and fondle what he described. For a moment he had forgotten Connor and the need to show off to the younger man his knowledge of the technique and history of the art.

  ‘Observe, Miss D’Arcy, how a tiny air-bubble is trapped in each of these diamond-shaped areas formed by the crossed canes.’ He gazed lovingly at the airy twisted stem of a goblet.

  He lingered, but my own gaze was drawn to a large cabinet which stood alone; it held a long velvet-lined box of finely polished wood, open, turned on end and tilted to display its contents. I read the small label: The Glassmaking Tools of Thomas Sheridan. They were much used, they bore the marks of the intense heat of his trade. For some reason, not fully conscious or explored, I felt the prickling of tears in my eyes.

  Connor came beside me; his tone fell softly, not mocking or bitter. ‘The great worked with the same tools as the humblest apprentice.’ He named them for me. ‘The blowing iron and the pontil ‒ the pucellas, calipers, shears and pincers. That scorched wooden thing there like a big butter patter was his battledor. You’ll see the men using these same tools out in the works.’ As I continued to stand there looking at them he added, in a tone so low it was almost a whisper in my ear, a close and private thing offered to me alone, ‘It was Lotti’s idea to have the case made for them. You see ‒ quite often she had the right instincts …’

  Praeger limped towards us, and the young receptionist was offering me the big leather-covered guest bock. The first page was not yet filled. Connor closed it and turned it back to her. ‘No, Daisy, Sheridans do not sign the guest book at Sheridan Glass.’

  I felt the familiar surge of mistrust arise; Connor drew me in, included me, gave me place as often as he thrust me out.

  The girl flushed and stammered with confusion. ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Connor. I just didn’t think …’ She returned the book to the desk. When Praeger came
abreast of her she held out her hand.

  ‘Mr. Praeger ‒ I’d like to say good-bye. You don’t come in here much, and it’s probably the last time I’ll be seeing you.’

  ‘Why child …’ He groped for her name, and didn’t remember it. ‘Why are you leaving us?’ ‒ the word ‘us’ as though he had not given up all interest in Sheridan Glass.

  ‘Well …’ she moved uneasily, and looked at Connor. ‘I’ve got a job in Dublin starting in two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Daisy isn’t leaving us.’ Connor took up the explanation. ‘I’ve had to ask her to find another job. We can’t afford a Daisy any more. As much as she decorates the place, and as little as we pay her, we still can’t afford her any more.’

  ‘But‒’ Praeger’s brow knit. His mind was obviously turned from Daisy and her job to the more important aspect, to him, of her leaving. ‘Who will be here to see that no damage is done when there are visitors? Umbrellas … children … it’s unthinkable to leave the collection untended while the public is on the premises.’

  Connor shrugged as if to indicate the bad taste of discussing this before Daisy, who would relay it all about town; at the same time his gesture said that the town might as well know for certain what was guessed at already.

  ‘The public won’t be on the premises. I’m closing the museum. We just can’t afford it. It’s quite simple.’

  ‘What will you do with the collection?’ I didn’t know whether it was concern for those who would no longer have access to it that shook Praeger’s voice, or the sudden hope that it might be for sale.

  ‘What can I do with it? Leave it here. It’s safer than at Meremount, as I’ve explained to Maura. As to what becomes of it eventually ‒ who knows? It isn’t mine to dispose of.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I think we should move along. The lunch whistle will go pretty soon, and the men are going to be very annoyed with me if they don’t get a good look at the last of the Sheridans. Of course, if I’d been given a little notice that today would be the day of the visitation, I could have had the men working on their fanciest pieces. They’ll not have the chance to show off as much as they’d like …’ Impatiently he was holding the door open for us, in command now that the change from the museum to the glassworks was being made, now that we were leaving the area that Praeger money had touched and transformed, and stepping back into the world where, although impoverished and antiquated, the Sheridans were still in control.