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10

An Heir for Coolowen

WHILE ‘NECESSITY HAD been the mother of invention’ as far as Julia was concerned – motherhood in all its forms was very much on her mind – her father was not slow in coming to understand the exact nature of what had taken place. When, therefore, Julia announced – soon after announcing her engagement – that she and Fergal would be marrying straight way, he was scarcely surprised. But while Willis could recognise necessity when confronted by it, he was on less sure ground when it came to invention and, when the invention involved his daughter Julia, he was generally at sea altogether. He could, therefore, be excused for not appreciating the full extent of the embarrassment in which she had found herself and nor could he be blamed for failing to recognise how inventive she had been in finding a solution to her predicament.

He prided himself on being a man of the world so that when Julia first broached the notion that, following her hasty engagement and her even hastier marriage, she and Fergal would hasten away on an extended honeymoon, he was not fooled. He did wonder, however, how he could have been so blind as not to see that the two were in love, and obviously passionately so, or the need for an extended honeymoon would never have arisen.

‘Fergal needs to get away and see something of the world,’ was how Julia put it to her father. ‘He’s been stuck at Coolowen since he was seventeen. It’s been no life for a young man like him. He’s seen nothing and been nowhere. This is his last chance.’

‘A last chance for Fergal’ was not at all how Willis viewed the situation but, nevertheless, he refrained from questioning Julia too closely and thus made it easy for her to continue her plotting. He did, however, enquire about the extended honeymoon that she was proposing and asked her just how extended she meant it to be.

‘About a year or so,’ Julia said.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Then Fergal will have to make some arrangements about who is to look after Coolowen while he’s away. I can’t think his aunts will be very happy though. But, if all comes to all, I would keep an eye on things for them.’

He desisted from making many more enquiries or putting any impediment in his daughter’s way. He remembered his own darling Annette and the torments her father had made them suffer by making them wait before marrying and how they had vowed that they would never inflict a similar embargo on any of their own children and so he kept his counsel. As to the other anxieties which he had – and he had a great many – he nursed those to himself. He sought solace in Lydia’s company and let Julia carry on with her schemes.

The Sale sisters were, initially, quite startled when Fergal told them that he was to marry Julia but Eleanor soon pronounced that she had known all along that such an eventuality was very likely.

‘It makes good sense,’ she said.

But when Martha pointed out that ‘good sense’ had never been a reason why anyone married, Eleanor ignored her. By ‘good sense’ she had meant that, in marrying someone they had known since she was born, Fergal had exonerated them from the tiresome task of having to get to know someone new; and that, in Eleanor’s mind, was sensible. If she or Martha suspected the reason behind Fergal’s sudden decision, they did not show it and they made no objection to the plan for him to be away from Coolowen for a year.

While all these things, as well as other details, were agreed to in a spirit of ready accord it was perhaps because everyone knew that there loomed over any plans for Julia’s and Fergal’s marriage a singular and unwelcome impediment.

In the first weeks after her announcement that she and Fergal were to marry, and to marry very soon, all mention of this stumbling block was assiduously skirted and steadfastly ignored but it could not, as everyone knew, be skirted and ignored forever.

Eventually it was Martha who raised the subject with Willis.

‘Eleanor won’t even discuss it,’ she said, ‘but it has to be discussed.’

‘I dread the very notion,’ said Willis, ‘but I don’t think there is any way round it. I did ask Canon Shortt if it could be avoided if they married in England, but evidently not. The rule applies there too.’

‘Has that despicable Father Costelloe spoken to Fergal do you know?’ said Martha. ‘He’s bound to insist they both sign the agreement that the children will be baptised and raised as Catholics.’

‘It’s quite iniquitous,’ said Willis. ‘And the notion that my daughter is obliged to be married in a Catholic chapel while her husband is forbidden by his priest to even set foot in a Protestant church makes my blood boil.’

‘Iniquitous or not,’ said Martha, ‘it’s their rules and it’s for us as much as Catholics to obey them.’

‘I know,’ said Willis.

‘It was only invented by the pope about fifty years ago,’ said Martha. ‘Our great-granny was a Catholic and she remained one after she married Great Grandpa. The girls from the marriage were all Catholics, the boys Protestant. It caused no division in the family, none whatsoever.’

‘Whereas this Ne Temere, as it’s called, causes a great deal of division in families,’ said Willis, ‘and division and suspicion among neighbours too.’

It was understood from the start that the wedding could not be in the little church in Liscarrig but, nevertheless, Willis decided that Canon Shortt should be consulted; and it was with Canon Shortt and Fergal that Willis went to see Father Costelloe.

‘I’ll be giving your daughter instruction,’ was the priest’s first pronouncement.

‘Instruction?’ said Willis.

‘Yes,’ said Father Costelloe, ‘if she is to become a Catholic, she has to have instruction and it’s my duty to give it to her.’

‘I don’t think my daughter has any intention of becoming a Catholic, Father,’ said Willis.

‘She still has to have instruction and then make up her own mind,’ said the priest.

Willis was all too aware that Julia was more than capable of making up her own mind, indeed she had been doing so from the time she was in the cradle; and, as far as instruction was concerned, he had never known her to accept instruction from anyone about anything. He was confident, therefore, that – even for Father Costelloe – she was unlikely to change. He did not, however, share this intelligence with the priest, choosing to move the discussion forward instead.

‘Perhaps you would let Mr Holt have a draft of the agreement which my daughter will be obliged to sign,’ Willis said.

‘It’s not really a matter for solicitors and the like,’ said Father Costelloe, ‘it’s for the couple themselves.’

‘That’s all very well Father,’ said Willis, ‘but I would like Mr Holt to see it and, if he’s in agreement, he will have Miss Julia and Mr Conroy sign it.’

‘It’s usually done at the Parochial House,’ said Father Costelloe.

‘Now about the marriage ceremony itself …’ said Willis

‘It has to be in the chapel and at a side altar or in the sacristy and before nine o’clock in the morning,’ said Father Costelloe.

The mention of an altar, side or otherwise, sent a shiver down Willis Esdaile’s spine. There was no such thing as far as he was concerned. There was a chancel at the east end of a church and in the chancel there was a Communion table, unadorned. There was never even a cross, either on this table or anywhere else. The idea, therefore, that his daughter was to be married in front of an altar – even a side one and before nine in the morning – was to Willis an absolute affront.

‘The wedding will be in Dublin,’ he said. ‘In that big chapel along from Guinness’s Brewery. Canon Shortt has spoken to Father Deasy there.’

‘I’m not sure that that can be allowed, Mr Esdaile,’ said Father Costelloe, ‘you see, it’s my duty, as Mr Conroy’s parish priest, to see that everything is correctly observed.’

‘Indeed,’ interrupted Canon Shortt, ‘but it is not an obligation for the marriage to take place in the Catholic partner’s parish and Mr Esdaile – and the Misses Sale, I should say – would prefer the ceremony to be in Dublin.’

‘I’ll see what can be done,’ said Father Costelloe.

Willis did not go to the wedding: nor did the Sale sisters. Fergal and Julia did not want them to come as both understood how insulting it was to people of their generation that they had no choice but to observe the rules of a Church that was not their own. Lydia went, and Fergal’s mother, Eileen; but not Edward nor Julia’s Odlum grandparents. When Fergal said that he would like some ‘male support’, Lydia suggested asking Mr Benson as her father was adamant that he ‘would not dignify the proceedings’ by having Canon Shortt. It was Father Deasy who conducted the marriage. Julia only mumbled the responses inaudibly and, in a display that was most unlike her and in spite of Fergal’s efforts to console her, sobbed and sniffed throughout. The entire proceedings were all over quite quickly, and before nine in the morning.

Later in the day, the little party met with Willis, Eleanor and Martha and had dinner in the Russell Hotel and, in the evening, Fergal and Julia caught the mailboat for Holyhead and on from there to London. They stayed in a hotel for a few weeks and then found a flat in Fulham. The baby was born towards the end of September and, when Fergal’s aunts heard it was a son, they insisted that he would be called Samuel.

‘There has always been a Sam Sale at Coolowen,’ they said, ‘ever since the family first came to the place more than two hundred years ago.’

Fergal and Julia were happy to comply with the sisters’ wishes and have the infant christened Samuel and it was only they – and Lydia – who knew that, while the little fellow might indeed be a Sale in name, in blood he certainly was not.

But this was not spoken about, not even between Julia and Fergal. What was done was done and all was now in the past.