Dear Lord Bellevue

DEAR Lord Bellevue, that peculiar peer! I can see him now tiptoeing like an elderly faun through the trees of his lost demesne, his mouth crammed with chocolate caramels, talking quietly to himself and in the midst of his ruin as gay as a lark!

We met him when we were children and we only met him twice, but we never forgot him. How could we? It was our first encounter with the half world — with those who are neither alive nor dead — and, like the first pantomime or the first crossing to England, it was burned into our memories forever. One spring — I think it was 1921 — my family, to get some rest from the Irish Troubles, took a small house high up in the Dublin mountains, just above the Bellevue demesne and below a barren heather mountain crowned by the ruins of the Hell Fire Club. During the eighteenth century, when the Irish Peerage was in its scarlet blooming, the Hell Fire Club was the gathering place of all the rakehells and trulls of Dublin. A secret passage was said to lead from the club down to Bellevue house, and rich and numerous were the rumors of the goings-on between Bellevue and Hell Fire.

One trespasses in Ireland as a matter of course, especially when the walls of the demesne are broken down and full of little gaps inviting juvenile delinquency. Many were the delightful hours we children spent in Bellevue woods — fishing in the fishless stream which laughed ironically on its way to Rathfarnham; stealing kindling wood; frightening the rabbits. One day we were seated on our favorite rock overlooking the stream when Lord Bellevue appeared, smiling genially upon us. We guessed it was he because we had been warned that he was odd and that he wandered lonely as a cloud over his lost land.

‘Good morrow, sweet maids!’ quoth he. ‘Have a sweetie.’ He sat down on a tree stump beside us and slowly pulled a paper bag out of his pocket. We stared at him shyly, afraid to speak. He wore light brown tweeds almost indecently threadbare, an old raincoat fastened here and there with safety pins, and an Edwardian deerstalker hat at a rakish angle over one eye. His face was red and foolish, but there was an innocent kindliness in his rolling blue eyes which we found very reassuring.

‘Lovely woods, ain’t they?’ he continued, handing round the paper bag. ‘In a month now there’ll be bluebells in every clearing — as my dear mother would say, “like the waves of the sea.” Think of that, now.’ Our mouths were too full to make any adequate response. ‘Life, life, life,’ caroled Lord Bellevue. ‘’Tis just the hours slipping away. But you are young and I am old. My father used to say, “Bring yourself to an anchor, George,” but somehow I never could attach myself to anything for long — human or otherwise. They tried tying me to the leg of a table, but it didn’t work. I brought the table down with me. Curious, ain’t it? So if you want to succeed in life, gels, bring yourself to an anchor.’

From somewhere in the depths of the woods a cuckoo began calling nobody in particular. As if obeying a signal, Lord Bellevue rose to his feet, swept off the deerstalker, and tripped off into the trees. We remained silent, fixed in amazement, for some moments while the cuckoo kept up his monotonous cry. The youngest child, Anna Maria, who had a profoundly grateful nature, summed up the situation. ‘Dear Lord Bellevue,’ she said, and popped a caramel into her mouth.

Our next meeting was much more momentous. It happened a week later as we were strolling up the lower avenue, having been down to the meadows to see the young lambs. It was a bright soft spring day. Little fleecy clouds chased each other across a pale blue sky, the grass had been washed clean by the rains of yesterday, and the buds on the trees looked like emeralds strung with diamonds. And who should we see come tripping towards us but George Edward Cotton, Fifth Lord Bellevue, without his raincoat but carrying over his shoulder a purple silk umbrella. We instantly began to tremble with nervous laughter.

‘Good morrow, gels! Hey nonny nonny,’ chanted the titled loon. ‘Have a sweetie, my doves.’ It was Monday and he was a little bit drunk, but, bless our innocence, we never guessed it. How could we know that he was paid on Saturday, drunk on Sunday, tipsy on Monday, slept on Tuesday, and lived for the rest of the week on chocolate caramels? He stopped suddenly in his tracks and held up a dirty white hand for silence.

‘Methought I heard the cuckoo,’ he whispered. ‘Listen, my angels!’ We listened obediently, and immediately the rural silence was broken by the reverberations of a loud explosion somewhere in the plain of Dublin below us. ‘Good Ged!’ exclaimed Lord Bellevue unperturbed. ‘That, my darlings, would be another ambush. The third in a week. God save Ireland!’ He lifted the deerstalker reverently and replaced it on his head back to front. For the first time I noticed he was wearing tennis shoes tied with string. ‘One of those Irish Republican lads,’ continued Lord Bellevue, ‘has been sleeping in the Grecian temple near the lily pond the last few nights. I was very glad to lend him an old blanket and a few other necessaries. Nice chap. We had a most interesting chat about the stars. I was able to put him right on a few astronomical points. Now, gels, how would you like to see my house?’ We nodded speechlessly and trotted after him up the avenue like nervous little sheep. ‘My house,’ he chirruped, indifferent as to whether we were listening or not, ‘my house has a history. George the Fourth dined with us in 1821. An extremely expensive business, entertaining royalty. We’ve been paying for it ever since. You remember what Byron said on that subject:—

You see in me, gels, a victim of hereditary bankruptcy. My dear mother was dressed by Worth and I am dressed by Woolworth. Come follow me. The house is a relic of the eighteenth century, that time of splendid living, and ‘ — he sank his voice to a conspiratorial whisper — ‘it is full of treasures.’

Our hearts beat high. Of course we wanted to get inside that mysterious house, and hadn’t we suspected all along that it was full of treasures?

‘I must apologize, gels, but I am not allowed to enter my own house through the hall door or, indeed, even the tradesmen’s entrance. A broken window adjacent to the butler’s pantry serves me at all times. It has also been frequently used by the members of the Irish Republican Army. Follow me.’

Like children under an enchantment, as indeed we were, we scrambled through the window after him, tense with delighted apprehension. Heaven knows what we expected to find — some sort of pirate treasure, pieces of eight, gold moidores, oak chests filled with jewels. . . .

‘The kitchens, you may observe, are empty; so indeed are the larders,’ remarked Lord Bellevue lightly. ‘Ah, life, life! We shall make our way upstairs to the picture gallery first.’ He led us along a dark, winding passage into the front hall. The house held a throbbing silence. Dust lay thick over everything. Occasionally we heard a little frightened scurrying of mice or rats. The air was sombre and cold as death. We looked around expectantly for the treasures, but there wasn’t a thing to be seen; there was nothing, nothing but dirt and spiders. We pattered after him, up the broad shallow curving stairs. Several of the banisters were missing. ‘This,’ said Lord Bellevue with a graceful sweep of the hand, ‘is the picture gallery.’ He pointed at the perfectly blank walls. ‘That portrait over there represents my ancestor John Donnelly of Johnstown, who ran through two fortunes in twenty years, his own and his wife’s. Finelooking chap, isn’t he? He had twelve runners in blue and yellow liveries clear the roads for his coach and six on his way up from Johnstown for the opening of Grattan’s parliament. Aha, there’s my favorite! Great-granduncle Simon Cotton. He, my nymphs, abducted the Quaker heiress Ann Rudd, kept her shut in his powder closet for three weeks, starved her into submission, and married her. Her father shot Simon in the left leg, — being a Quaker, his aim was halfhearted, — but it was a very happy marriage. Twelve children; two of them lived.’

We stared obediently at the stained yellow walls from which long strips of the tapestry were hanging in tattered streamers, and we avoided each other’s eyes. Lord Bellevue, we could see, was in an ecstasy. He stood in a rapt attitude before each imaginary portrait, examining it through half-closed eyes, explaining the identity of each one to his bewildered audience. ‘My great-grandfather George Augustus by Romney, my grandfather George William by Lawrence, my father George Albert by O’Connor, and myself, a small water color by Osborne. Rather pleasant, isn’t it? That conversation piece over there shows the family of George William grouped in the great drawing room which I shall show you presently. The wench at the piano is the notorious Amelia Skinner. Now I must show you the dining room, which was planned to seat fifty guests.’ We hurried downstairs after him, glad to leave that ghostly company. In the hall we stopped for a moment as he pointed out the beauties of a nonexistent crystal chandelier, and then he ushered us into a great gloomy room with three long windows opening out on the front shrubbery. It was empty except for some broken beer bottles and a torn newspaper in the massive fireplace.

‘Many delightful and amusing incidents took place in this room,’ said Lord Bellevue. It was now quite plain to us that he was talking to himself. ‘My grandfather George William rode his famous mare “Tudor Rose" round that very table — magnificent piece of Sheraton, isn’t it? The noble creature leaped the table without touching a glass. A wager, of course, following upon winning the Punchestown Plate. On another occasion Simon Cotton walked into the hall stark-naked, balancing a soup tureen of boiling soup on his head. His aunt, Mrs. Lestrange, was coming down the stairs at the time, saw him, fainted, and died of a heart attack twenty minutes later. Simon was — er — said to be in close touch with the Hell Fire Club. Those, my darlings, were the glorious high-living days which have gone forever. If we’d been able to keep our money, we’d have been all right, but women and gold slipped through our fingers. Hey nonny nonny!’

Then, if you please, he led us wondering sprites into the great drawing room and showed us the very spot on which his great-aunt Fanny had personally insulted Lady Morgan. He begged us to admire the red damask curtains and to take particular notice of the ceiling, which had been painted by Angelica Kauffmann. We saw only broken plaster revealing the bare boards and cobwebs. Afterwards he urged us towards the long windows ‘which commanded a panoramic view of the Bay of Dublin, gels,’ and implored us to admire the gardens, ‘the clipped hedges and smooth lawns, finest turf in County Dublin. The Grecian temple, gels, was — er — designed by George William for Amelia Skinner.’ The gardens we looked upon with our mortal eyes were a jungle — the view was obliterated by exhausted willows and great bramble thickets surging over the windows. The Grecian temple was nowhere to be seen.

At last, exhausted, bewildered, and somehow cheated, we clambered out again into the open air. The first crystalline freshness of the spring day had faded; the sky was sad and lowering, and a light rain was pattering down on the leaves of the shrubbery. We stood there for a minute or two in embarrassed silence, keeping our eyes fixed on the ground. Lord Bellevue was glowing with happiness.

‘Lovely old things,’ he murmured. ‘I like to keep an eye on them meself. And the I.R.A. lads have given me their word not to injure them.’

Something made me look up, and I caught his eyes fixed upon us with an expression of mute entreaty. He was begging for reassurance the way a dog begs for a bone. But I, being young and cruel, remained silent and withheld the words of comfort. Far off in the woods the cuckoo somewhat uncertainly broke into his foolish song.

‘Thank you, gels! It has been a delight — a joy to show you my lost world. Farewell!’

He lifted the deerstalker, bowed, and trailed up the avenue in the direction of the gate lodge. He seemed a little shrunken, and the purple silk umbrella drooped dismally over his shoulder. We never saw him again.

Two years ago Anna Maria and I drove up the same mountain road on a fine spring evening in April. On the right I saw the dark mass of the Hell Fire Club crowning the heather mountain, and eagerly I looked down to the left for the familiar demesne walls, the woods of Bellevue. They were gone, the broken stone walls were gone, and yellow freshly painted brick things designed to keep out anything human had taken their place. The trees also had vanished, and Bellevue house stood naked to the cold winds of heaven, old and gray and very much ashamed.

‘Bellevue?’ I whispered. ‘What has happened to Bellevue?’

‘Lord Bellevue died ten years ago,’ said Anna Maria mournfully, ‘and the place was acquired by the Church. It’s now a Magdalen convent for fallen women. Isn’t it a horrid sight? They’ve painted everything a gallstone yellow.’

We were both silent for a moment. I thought of Simon Cotton stark-naked carrying a soup tureen on his head. What a trial for the Reverend Mother if he walked!

‘Poor Lord Bellevue,’ I murmured.

We stood for a while leaning on the bilious wall gazing across the plain of Dublin to the sea. The countryside was bathed in a wicked sort of spring peace which boded no good. Suddenly the convent bell began to toll, breaking the silence with virtuous insistence. Presently it stopped, and high up in the heather behind us somewhere near the Hell Fire Club we heard the unutterably silly hut undefeatable call of the cuckoo bird.

‘Dear Lord Bellevue,’said Anna Maria.