Lit eZine Vol 5 | p-25 | FICTION | The Gate Lodge

SHORT STORY

THE GATE LODGE
by Neil Brosnan

Liam tells it exactly as he had rehearsed it on the drive to Dublin, and through his every waking moment of the previous week. He relates how Emma had been waiting for almost an hour before he’d arrived for his appointment; how the secretary had explained that the solicitor was further delayed in court and wasn’t expected back in his office for at least another thirty minutes. He describes how Emma had pressed the sole of her right shoe against his instep as he was about to accept the secretary’s offer of a coffee. He recounts how Emma had then whispered that she’d already tried the coffee but had later sneaked it into the pot of the anaemic rubber plant on the waiting room table. Smiling, he recalls how Emma had then suggested they try a little nearby cafe. He does not, however, mention that, subsequent to their treat of cappuccinos and éclairs, Emma had finally closed the sale of her parents’ Dublin home, two years after her widowed mother’s death. 

     Dorothy, Liam’s father’s elder sister, listens in silence until he mentions that Emma is the daughter of Rev Robert Barton, their one-time local vicar, who had briefly rented the Kyleduff gate lodge while the parish’s rectory was being refurbished.

***

     About five hours after our chance encounter at the solicitor’s office, Liam had phoned to invite me to dinner; we agreed to meet at an intimate city restaurant on the following Saturday evening. My mind in a tizzy, it was inevitable that my thoughts should meander back to my childhood days in Kyleduff. Mum hadn’t shared my enthusiasm with our move to the two-bedroom gate lodge. A city girl to the core, Mum had equally despised each of the provincial towns Dad’s bishop had dispatched us to, and the prospect of having to live even closer to the middle of nowhere was nothing short of insult added to injury. Dad had been philosophical about our frequent moves, insisting that each was another step in the right direction, towards a wealthy city parish which could keep us all in the comfort we deserved. Dad’s finances had always been precarious, even our ancient Volkswagen Beetle was a luxury he couldn’t really afford. But Mum would insist that the only thing that made life bearable in such godforsaken places was the knowledge that one could escape, however briefly, back to civilization. 

     Our six-week stay in the gate lodge coincided with my school summer holidays and gifted me a taste of rural freedom of which most urban-based nine-year-olds could only dream. At the edge of the wood which had given Kyleduff its name, the gate lodge was the centre of an ever-changing visual and aural tapestry, and the springboard for countless childhood exploits and adventures. In the three homes I’d known before the gate lodge, my quest for nature had been restricted to fleeting glimpses of startled songbirds, hovering insects, scuttling rodents, spinning spiders and miscellaneous other creepy-crawlies. In the gate lodge, awakening to the sounds of woodland and farm, and being lulled to sleep by the evensong of a roosting blackbird and the transcendental redolence of hedgerow honeysuckle, I felt instantly at home and sorely wished to remain there forever.

     I was equally fascinated by Kyleduff House and the people who lived inside the nine front windows of the imposing Victorian edifice. Mum was less enchanted with our nearest neighbours, and would refer to the young man as The Crown Prince, his parents as Lord and Lady Muck, while dubbing his frequently visiting aunts The Snoop Sisters. I longed for a proper look at the house – and its occupants – but Mum had strictly forbidden me to venture within a hundred yards of the building. According to Mum, all of those big old houses had a ghost or two hovering in their environs, and anyone who would even glimpse one of these spectres would, almost certainly, end up in the mental asylum at the other side of town.

***

     “Are you telling me that you are seriously considering marriage to a woman who, for all you know, may be into her forties; how could you not have established her age?” Dorothy asks incredulously. “William, she is the daughter of a penniless clergyman, and she has spent all of her adult life in the city. You, dear boy, are the last of the Trent-Thompsons. The futures of both our name and our bloodline are entirely in your hands; you need a wife of appropriate breeding, a wife who understands country life and, above all, a wife who is young enough to give you an heir – not some superannuated choir girl without a penny to her name.” Dorothy pauses to light a cigarette.

    “Emma is a decent, caring lady,” Liam counters, annoyed by Dorothy’s use of William – the British form of his name. “She nursed her father through two years of terminal cancer and then spent the next seven years coping with her mother’s Alzheimer’s. Having put her life on hold for almost a decade, Emma has since resumed her career in interior design. She is wonderfully talented; she has great plans for the gate lodge.”

     “Interior design… gate lodge? She may be very capable with curtain ruffles and chintz cushion covers; but that hardly qualifies her for a life in farming!”

     “With respect, Aunt Dot, I think I’ve coped pretty well on my own for over twenty years. I don’t need another farm labourer.” Liam says, inwardly wincing at his plaintive tone.

     “My dear boy, I fully appreciate what you have achieved at Kyleduff since your poor father’s heart failed him.” Dorothy’s pacing of the room slows a fraction. “But you will be a superb father and, with the support of the right woman, your children will have the best possible start in life. It is vital that you choose correctly. I will help in every way possible.” 

     “As will I,” adds Florence – the baby of her generation – a slightly shorter, somewhat less wan, less gaunt, sometimes smiling version of Dorothy.

***

     One glorious July morning I was exploring through the shrubbery of the front garden when a little brown-and-white terrier materialised beside me. We’d never had a dog. Mum was terrified of anything that had more than two legs – and many things that didn’t. The little animal seemed friendly, wagging his stumpy tail furiously when I reached out to pet him.

     “He likes you,” a disembodied voice said softly; “his name is Rascal.” 

     The front gate creaked open, silencing the trilling of a robin from a nearby buddleia bush. A tall woman wearing a pale, flowery dress hunkered down beside me.

     “What have you got there, child?” she asked, her blonde hair brushing my cheek.

     “A ladybird,” I replied, raising my jam-jar to within inches of her nose.

     “She is beautiful, but she will die if you keep her in there…”

     “I won’t, I’m going to release her on the rose bush in the back. It’s infested with aphids; she’ll have a proper feast.” I said, springing upright.

     “Aphids; infested? My goodness! What a clever girl you are. You do that, child; I need a quick word with Mrs Barton.” She smiled, getting to her feet as Mum appeared in the doorway.  

     There was no sign of the lady when I returned with my empty jam-jar. About an hour later, she reappeared and leaned across the gate to hand me a little brightly wrapped package from the wicker basket attached to the handlebars of her black Raleigh bicycle. 

     “I saw this in town,” she said. “I hope you will find it interesting. Bye for now.”

     Undoing the wrapping, I decided that this was one book I would have to keep hidden from Mum: she wouldn’t sleep for weeks if she saw the multitude of colourful creepy-crawlies on the front cover. 

***

     Liam has long been in awe of both aunts, but whether on their patch or his, he feels particularly inadequate in Dorothy’s presence. Dorothy has always been the trailblazer; Florence the one who had followed her lead: to their midlands’ boarding school, to teacher training college, to a position in a private girls’ academy in Dublin, to sharing the detached Terenure house their father had purchased for them almost fifty years before – a house which Liam has only recently finished paying for. Both now retired, the sisters continue to live in that very house but, despite having almost a century of city living between them, Dorothy and Florence still regard Kyleduff House as their rightful home. 

     In boyhood, Liam would eagerly anticipate each visit from his aunts. Whether for Christmas, Easter, or summer holidays, or brief Halloween breaks, the aunts’ return to their childhood bedrooms had not only meant presents, but also a temporary cessation of hostilities between Liam’s parents. Father had adored having his sisters back at Kyleduff. Both Dorothy and Florence were keen horsewomen, and Father would take great pride in parading his latest equine prospect before their admiring eyes. Never content with the progeny of his own brood mare, Father’s Epsom and Ascot aspirations would be regularly reignited by the pedigree of some yearling in a sales catalogue, and Mother’s choking sobs would again be heard from the rear guest room. Forgotten names stampede through Liam’s thoughts: Kyleduff Leader, Lord of Kyleduff, Kyleduff Run, Kyleduff Dancer, Kyleduff Gale and, almost fondly, the home-bred Kyleduff Native, the only one of Father’s string to have ever come close to paying its way.  

     There are no thoroughbreds grazing Kyleduff’s three-hundred-plus acres these days – Liam’s only equines are the bay draught mare which he harnesses to salvage storm-felled trees from Kyleduff wood, and her filly foal – her eventual successor. The dairy herd inherited by Liam had numbered less than thirty head, but he now milks over one hundred pedigree Friesians, while more than fifty Aberdeen Angus cows suckle almost twice as many fattening calves.   

***

     Next to wildlife, drawing was my favourite hobby and whenever I’d tire of stalking the creatures that ran, hopped, crawled, burrowed, swam or flew in Kyleduff wood, I would try to capture the timeless majesty of the big house itself. With Mum’s limitations always in mind, I would conceal myself among the beeches at the bend of the avenue, or at the edge of the grove behind the gate lodge. One sultry August afternoon, crouched in a clump of montbretia by the avenue, I was adding a tinge of red to the creeper that softened the sculpted grey of the limestone walls when Rascal appeared from nowhere and stretched out beside me.

     “That is very good, child,” a vaguely familiar voice sounded, “very good, indeed.” Startled, I swivelled my neck to find the lady of the house smiling down at me. 

     “Would you like to have it?” I heard myself say.

     “Oh, may I? But I must pay…” Her hand strayed towards the basket of her bicycle.

     “No, it’s free; it’s a present for you,” I said, meaning it.

     “Thank you, dear child; but I really should give you something…”

     “You gave me a lovely book,” I said, carefully removing the latest crayoned page from my jotter and handing it to her.

     “Thank you,” she said, taking a last look before rolling up the sheet and placing it in her basket. “I shall treasure this until my dying day. Bye for now,” she said, mounting her bicycle and, with Rascal performing a series of yapping pirouettes, pedalling off towards the house. Though we exchanged waves on a few occasions afterwards, we never spoke again. She died about two years later when a truck clipped her bicycle as she crossed the road at the avenue entrance. It was shortly after Dad had finally been granted his Dublin parish, 

***

     Though Liam and I had known each other for less than three months, I wasn’t exactly shocked by his proposal of marriage on our seventh date. I suppose I should have given such a life-altering event more thought, but as I had never been more certain of anything in my life, I accepted on the spot. Within another week, we had finalised the date; it was time I was presented to Liam’s aunts. By then, I had been to Kyleduff House on several occasions, but the first will live long in my memory. Despite my initial pang at what three decades of neglect had done to the gate lodge, my heart had positively soared as Liam’s Land Rover rounded the bend mid-way along the tree-lined avenue. This was the closest I had ever been to Kyleduff House, and even the persistent September drizzle couldn’t dampen my excitement at the thought of crossing Liam’s threshold for the first time.  

     I felt no such anticipation at the prospect of meeting the Trent-Thompson sisters. The ladies both got to their feet as Liam ushered me inside the smoke-filled drawing room.

     “Emma, may I present my aunts: Dot and Flor; ladies, please meet Emma Barton,” Liam said, taking an involuntary backward step.

     “Dorothy Trent-Thompson,” the taller of the pair hissed; I felt the brief chill of a thumb against my right palm. “This is my sister, Florence.” Her arms akimbo, she inclined her head towards what could have been her slightly distorted shadow.

     “I’m delighted to finally meet you, Dorothy; and you, Florence,” I muttered, turning hopefully towards the second woman.

     “Likewise, Emma; and I am pleased to welcome you to Kyleduff,” Florence said, smiling self-consciously as I grabbed her trembling hand. Yes, I was assertive; I felt it was my right. After all, I was looking at my framed drawing hanging in that very room, alongside several more worthy studies of Kyleduff House – exactly where Liam’s mother had placed it all those years before.

***    

     Our wedding took place exactly five months after our chance meeting at the solicitor’s. Both aunts attended, along with several neighbours, some personal friends, and a sprinkling of distant relatives. A cousin of Dad’s travelled from Belfast to officiate at the ceremony; a London-based niece of Mum’s proved a worthy matron of honour, and then we all sat down to dinner at the hotel in town. After a week spent touring around Connemara, we returned to Kyleduff, waved the aunts off on their way back to Dublin, and settled down to the peace and tranquillity of our beautiful home.

***

     “She is pregnant; definitely?” Dorothy gasps, flopping back into her chair. “How far along?” She finally manages, reaching for a cigarette.

     “About four months.” Liam says, feeling as though he has been caught doing something very naughty.

     “About four months?” Dorothy stares quizzically from beneath raised, pencilled eyebrows; Liam tries to shut out the image of bony fingers sliding beads across an abacus.

     “Seventeen weeks, according to the gynaecologist…”

    “Oh? Very well; that will be it, then. Congratulations, dear boy. I simply cannot wait to relay our wonderful news to Florence; she has had her doubts, you know! We must make preparations; we shall most certainly be needed at Kyleduff. I cannot imagine why it takes that girl so long to exchange a couple of library books.” 

***

     Within twenty-four-hours of learning of my pregnancy, the aunts descended upon us with a display of bonhomie that had been sadly lacking on our wedding day. Over the ensuing weeks, while Florence did occasionally display some Nightingale-like qualities, I was finding it increasingly difficult to think of Dorothy as anything other than the wicked witch of the west. Dorothy clearly regarded me as a necessary inconvenience, a mere vessel to bear the future of the Trent-Thompson line to safe harbour. 

     “I’ll get rid of them,” Liam had promised, but as the weeks grew into months his resolve wilted to an occasional undertaking to have a word.

     We waited until the thirty-eighth week to inform the aunts that I was carrying twins: identical boys – an heir and a spare. Taking umbrage when Liam refused the woodworm-skewered cradle which she had unearthed from amongst the dollhouses and rocking horses in the attic, Dorothy went into an incommunicative, gin-laced sulk – a sulk that might have lasted even longer had I not gone into labour five days later. 

***

     “She is preparing to leave you. Why else would she have squandered so much money on the gate lodge? Mark my words, William,” Dorothy stabs the air with her cigarette, “she will take your sons, and she will then steal Kyleduff out from underneath us all!” 

     It is the evening of the twins’ first birthday. Emma has just taken William and Robert up to bed, and Florence has gone to fetch another bottle of wine from the cellar.

     “You are a shrewd woman, Aunt Dot, but you’ve got this very wrong. The gate lodge is Emma’s, to do with as she pleases; it’s her hobby – her pet project. She has totally transformed it, and what she hasn’t done with her own hands she has paid for out of her own pocket. At the very least, she will have a shop window in which to showcase her talents!” 

***

     I’ve heard that most new mothers fantasise about placid, sleeping babies; Billy and Bobby have been anything but, and that suits me very well. Immediately after the christenings. Liam’s aunts fled, bleary-eyed, back to Dublin and, except for their occasional flying visits, our home has become our own again. Liam is a wonderful husband and an amazing father, and has spent much of the spring taming the jungle around the gate lodge. The twins and I have passed many a fine summer day there: they sleeping soundly, while I work around them. The old place is quite cosy now; we’ve added a few new bits and pieces, along with the aunts’ personal stuff from their bedrooms in the main house. Liam jokes that even Dorothy might be acclimatised to her new surroundings by our twins’ second birthday.