Читать книгу Knockfane - Homan Potterton - Страница 6

Prologue

IT WAS NOT a normal time of year to go swimming – Edward knew that. But then, even in high summer, he was not supposed to bathe in the swamp in the Bracken field. It was dangerous, his father always insisted, and it was forbidden.

But that afternoon, when Dympna Canty had appeared in the yard and suggested going down to the swamp, Edward had followed her. It never occurred to him that she would think of swimming. It was, after all, only February but it was one of those clear blue-skied days which cold nights and early-morning frosts sometimes usher in and, even though there were no leaves on the trees, it looked like summer. At least, it looked like summer to Dympna Canty.

At fourteen, she was almost two years older than Edward. She was one of ‘those Cantys’ as people referred to them. A family of twelve with a drunken no-good of a father and a put-upon mother, they lived in a cottage about a mile from Knockfane and they were known as thieves and as trouble. But Willis Esdaile, who as a general rule looked for the best in everyone, had a soft spot for ‘the poor Cantys’ and tried to help them as he could. To that end he employed Mrs Canty one day a week to do the laundry and Dympna would sometimes accompany her.

‘Will you be gettin’ in?’ Dympna said to Edward.

She had climbed up on the wooden paling that surrounded the swamp and was sitting on the top rung. Her socks were down around her ankles and Edward could see the holes in the soles of her boots.

‘The water would be far too cold,’ said Edward.

‘How would it be cold?’ said Dympna, ‘and the sun burstin’ out of the sky. Are ye a man at all, or what?’

‘The Master,’ said Edward, referring to his father, ‘forbids anyone to bathe in the swamp, even in summer.’

‘He couldn’t be forbidin’ me,’ said Dympna. ‘Take off your socks and shoes and just try it at the edge.’

She jumped down from the paling and, seated on the grass, began to pull off her boots. Barefooted, Edward ducked under the paling and put his foot in the water.

‘It’s freezing,’ he shrieked.

He looked round and was stunned to see that Dympna had stripped down to her knickers. In a flash, she jumped through the paling and pushed him, fully clothed, into the water and then, hesitating for a moment to bless herself, she jumped in after him.

He screamed. And so did Dympna when she felt the cold of the water. And they continued to scream, and scream, until they had pulled themselves out.

Willis Esdaile had intended to go into Liscarrig that afternoon. It was his day for going to the bank. But hearing from Daly, the herdsman at Knockfane, that some of the ewes looked like lambing very early, he had gone down to Tubber, the field next to the Bracken. Sauntering among the ewes, none of which seemed in any danger to him, he heard the screeching from across the hedge. Rushing towards the swamp, he saw the naked figure that was Dympna running madly around and jumping up and down. Then he saw Edward, still in his clothes, but dripping wet, and covered in the mud of the swamp.

When Dympna saw Mr Esdaile coming through the gate she gathered up her tattered and grubby dress and cardigan and dashed off, like a snake, through the field towards the road. Mr Esdaile was white: it was as though the moon had suddenly replaced the sun in the sky. Coming towards Edward, he raised his arm as if to strike him. Then he stopped still, like an animal unexpectedly startled by an alien sound.

‘So this is the sort of thing you get up to when you think my back is turned,’ he said. ‘Playing around with a little trollop like that. Who knows what it might lead to?’

‘It wasn’t me,’ Edward pleaded, ‘it was her. She just came up behind me and shoved me in.’

‘That’s it,’ said Willis, ‘always blame someone else. Well, I’ll teach you.’

He had become flushed. His brow had moistened. He leant against the paling. Turning towards Edward after a moment, he said:

‘Get your clothes and go back to the house and up to your room. I’ll come and see you there and decide what to do about this wickedness.’

Willis Esdaile did not come up to see Edward that afternoon, or later that evening. All alone – his sisters Julia and Lydia were forbidden to go and see him – Edward was very frightened. It had not at all been his fault. Dympna Canty had brought him down to the swamp and it was she who had pushed him in.

‘You and I have to have a talk,’ his father said when he came into Edward’s room the following day, ‘and this is as good a time as any. It’s overdue.’

Edward sat up in the bed.

‘Put on your dressing gown and sit over there in that chair.’

Edward was puzzled. His father seemed not to be angry. He wondered if, before being accused, he should attempt to explain what happened yesterday.

‘You’ll be going away to boarding school next September,’ Willis said. ‘St Stephen’s will suit you very well. You should be happy there with other boys of your own age to mix with, and games and the like …’

Edward nodded. He wondered what going away to school had to do with Dympna Canty. He waited for an outburst about yesterday’s incident, but none came. He had answers ready but his father did not mention anything.

‘… and then, when you leave school in five or six years’ time,’ Willis continued, ‘you’ll be going to live with your grandparents in Derrymahon. I’ve never told you this before but your mother and I agreed on that almost as soon as you were born. It was what your Grandpa wanted but your mother and I didn’t really mind.’

The words stung Edward. They came to him as a shock but, in spite of that, he understood them immediately. His parents had decided, when he was still only a baby, that they would give him away and they ‘didn’t really mind’ about it. Feeling tears, he looked away to conceal them from his father.

‘There are other things you have to know,’ Willis said.

He got up from where he was sitting and went over to the fireplace. Leaning with an elbow on the mantelpiece, he looked into the empty grate.

‘About the family, your mother …’ he continued.

Edward’s thoughts swam and he felt his stomach empty.

‘No, Pappy, please …’ he said.

Willis raised his palm to silence him and started to speak.

When he had finished, it was almost as though Edward did not know where he was. Much of what he had heard, he had not fully understood. He did not like being reminded of his Mama – his Mama was dead, after all – and the Mama he heard about that morning from his father was not the Mama he remembered. He was at a loss.

‘Dympna Canty has brought all this on,’ he thought after his father had left the room.

He wanted to get back into bed and he wanted to sleep. But his father had told him to get dressed and come downstairs. He sobbed as he did so. He was relieved that he had not been punished but he did not understand.

It was only in years to come, and when he was much older, that he would appreciate the full import of his father’s words to him that day. They had not been intended as a punishment and his father could not have understood how cruel they were. But cruel is how the words seemed to Edward and, although he tried to put them out of his mind and never think of them again, they were to haunt his existence for ever after.