Island Of The Heart

‘You won’t be a stranger. I’ll explain the position, and you’ll arrive with the backing of my warmest recommendation. How’s that?’

‘It can’t be that simple.’

‘Where are the complications?’

‘Well, have you ever had a private pupil before? I mean—won’t your family think it’s odd, if I suddenly appear …?’ She looked away, reddening slightly.

‘I know what you mean, Miss Alexandra Beaumont.’ Crispin sounded amused, then his voice sobered. ‘I’m asking you to Killane because I think you have a worthwhile talent which you won’t otherwise have the opportunity to exploit.’ He paused, then said deliberately, ‘Let’s leave any other considerations in the lap of the gods, shall we? Now, do you accept my proposition?’

Sandie’s heart was thumping swiftly and painfully against her ribs. She could feel other objections crowding in. She was assailed by nervousness and exhilaration at the same time.

She said, ‘Yes, I do. But I don’t know what my parents will say.’

‘Leave them to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll handle them.’ He rose, and so did she. ‘Now, shall we seal our bargain in the time-honoured way?’

He held out his hand, and Sandie put her fingers into his, only to find herself drawn forward to receive Crispin’s light kiss on her mouth.

He said, ‘I’ll be in touch,’ then the dressing room door closed behind him.

Sandie stared after him, her hand lifting involuntarily to touch her lips.

She thought, A summer in Connemara. It sounds like magic—too good to be true. She hesitated. But after the summer—what then?

She shrugged. I’ll wait and see, she told herself, and let the remembrance of Crispin Sinclair’s smile dispel that faint chill of anxiety inside her.

A fortnight later, still dazed at the total upheaval in her life, Sandie found herself descending from the plane at Shannon.

Looking back, she realised she had never thought her parents would agree, and she hadn’t the slightest idea how Crispin had persuaded them. Neither, she thought, had they. But she was aware that he’d accentuated her dubious role as his mother’s accompanist rather than her status as his pupil, and although this wasn’t exactly a deception, it had caused her a slight flicker of uneasiness.

Inside the terminal building, she collected her luggage and made her way to the Aer Lingus desk as Crispin had instructed.

‘Excuse me,’ she addressed the green-clad girl, who looked up smiling at her approach. ‘My name is Beaumont. Someone is meeting me here.’

The girl nodded. ‘Your man was just enquiring for you,’ she said. She looked past Sandie, and beckoned.

Sandie turned to find herself confronted by a short, squat individual. His face was as brown and wrinkled as a walnut, and his greying hair still held a tinge of fierce red. He was staring at Sandie with an expression of incredulity that was too disconcerting to be amusing.

‘It’s you, is it, I’m to take to Killane?’ His tone held lively dismay.

Sandie tilted her chin a little. ‘I’m Mr Sinclair’s guest, yes,’ she returned coolly. ‘How do you do, Mr—er—?’ She held out her hand.

‘O’Flaherty will do—without the Mister.’ The man ignored her hand, and picked up her cases. ‘Guest,’ he added with a faint snort. ‘Well for Mr Crispin that himself’s not at home to see this.’ And on this obscure utterance, he turned and strode towards the main doors, heading for the car park. Sandie had to run in order to keep up with him.

She said breathlessly, and a little desperately, ‘I am expected, aren’t I?’

‘They’re expecting someone, surely.’ Sandie’s cases were fitted into the back of a large estate car. ‘In you get, now. We have a fair drive ahead of us.’

Sandie got into the passenger seat and fastened its belt. It was not the introduction she’d expected to Ireland of the Hundred Thousand Welcomes, she thought, trying to feel amused, and failing.

‘It’s a beautiful day,’ she tried tentatively, as they won free of the airport’s environs, and embarked on the road to Galway.

‘It won’t last,’ was the uncompromising reply, and Sandie sighed soundlessly, and transferred her attention to the scenery.

It took well over an hour to reach Galway. Beyond the city, the road narrowed dramatically, and the weather, as O’Flaherty had predicted, began to deteriorate. Ahead, Sandie could see mountains, their peaks hidden by cloud, and the whole landscape seemed to be changing, taking on a disturbing wildness now that the narrow grey towns had been left behind.

O’Flaherty had wasted no time with his driving so far, but now he slowed perceptibly, as the rattle of loose chippings stung at the underside of the car. Moorland rolled away on both sides of the road, interspersed with a scatter of small white houses, most of them with thatched roofs. Here and there, the earth had been deeply scarred by turf cutting, and piles of turfs stood stacked and awaiting collection near the verges. There were great stretches of water too, looking grey and desolate under the lowering sky. Some of the lakes had islands, and Sandie, fascinated, spotted the ruined stones of an ancient tower on one, half hidden by trees and undergrowth. She would have loved to have asked its history, but after sneaking a look at O’Flaherty’s forbidding countenance she decided to save her questions for Crispin.

She was frankly puzzled by the little man’s hostility, and it made her apprehensive about her reception generally when eventually they reached their journey’s end. If they ever did, she thought, stretching her cramped legs in front of her.

‘Too long a ride for you, is it?’

‘No, I’m enjoying it,’ Sandie said mendaciously. ‘The scenery’s fabulous, isn’t it? So romantic.’

Her innocent comment was greeted by another snort, and silence descended again.

There was little other traffic—some cyclists, a lorry piled high with bales of hay, a few cars and a couple of horseboxes. Occasionally they were brought to a halt by sheep and cattle wandering across the road in front of them.

Rain splattered across the windscreen, and O’Flaherty swore under his breath, and flicked on the wipers, before turning off on to a side road bordering yet another enormous lake. The clouds were down so low now that only the lower slopes of the mountains were visible.

‘What are they called?’ Sandie asked, pointing.

‘The Twelve Pins.’

The road unwound in front of them, like a narrow grey ribbon, edging the water. Sandie watched the rain dancing across the flat surface of the lake, and shivered a little, not from cold, but a sudden swift loneliness.

If she was at home now, she thought, she would probably be helping her mother in the garden, with its neat lawns and beds and well-pruned trees. And instead, here she was driving through a wilderness of water and peat bogs, to what?

She hadn’t expected Crispin to be at the airport to meet her, but she wished with all her heart that he had been. Perhaps she wouldn’t have been feeling quite so strange—and desolate, she thought swallowing a lump in her throat, as she realised just how far she was from home and everything familiar.

‘There’s Killane,’ said O’Flaherty abruptly, and gestured towards where a broad promontory jutted out into the lake. Peering forward, Sandie could see a thin trail of smoke rising above the clustering trees and, as they got closer, could make out the outline of a house. He turned a car across a cattle grid, through empty gateposts, and up a long drive flanked on each side by tall hedges of fuchsia, growing wild in a profusion of pink, crimson and purple.

And then the house was there in front of them, big and square, like a child might draw, with long multi-paned windows. Stone steps, guarded by urns filled with trailing plants, led up to the double doors of the main entrance. It looked grand, forbidding and slightly shabby, all at the same time, Sandie decided wonderingly.

O’Flaherty brought the car to a halt at the foot of the steps. ‘Away in with you,’ he directed. ‘I’ll see to your luggage.’

Sandie flew through the raindrops up the steps, and turned the handle on one of the doors. It gave more easily than she anticipated, and she nearly fell into a wide hall, with a flagged stone floor.

‘God bless us and save us!’ exclaimed a startled voice.

As Sandie recovered her equilibrium, she found she was being observed by a tall grey-haired woman in a flowered overall, carrying a tray laden down with tea-things.

She said, ‘I was told to come straight in. I am expected …’

It was beginning, she realised with exasperation, to sound a little forlorn. It was also irksome to find the woman gaping at her, rather as O’Flaherty had done at the airport.

Sandie straightened her shoulders. ‘I’d like to see Mr Sinclair, please,’ she said with a trace of crispness.

‘He’s in Galway, and won’t be back till night. I’ll take you to the madam.’ The woman continued across the hall, to another pair of double doors, and shouldered her way through them, indicating that Sandie should follow.