Elizabeth Bowen's Selected Irish Writings

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5 A Clean End 1960s 198 Bowen’s Court: An Afterword, 1963 So, Henry VI died, and I as his only child inherited Bowen’s Court. I was the first woman heir; already I had changed my father’s name for my husband’s. We had no children. We continued, onward from 1930, to live for the greater part of the time in England, where Alan Cameron worked and we had a home – first at the edge of Oxford and then in London. Not until 1952 was there any question (that was to say, any possibility) of our taking up a continuous life at Bowen’s Court. Nonetheless, since the place had become mine it became familiar to me at every time of year: hitherto, I had known it in summer only. Till 1939, when the war came, I was in the way of crossing the sea to Bowen’s Court, known to be waiting there. When Alan could he came with me; sometimes I went alone. Existence there, though in fact it was discontinuous, did not seem so: each time one came back, it was as though one had not been away. I was surprised, I remember, when one of our visitors from England spoke of Bowen’s Court (commendingly) as ‘a holiday house.’ It was never that. It was, however, designed for people, and there were many there. World War II, while it lasted, put a stop to our coming and going. After 1945, that began again. Friends from England and America, as well as from other parts of Ireland, came to stay with us. And, as a family house, Bowen’s Court was made happy by the presence of our relations, members of Alan’s family and of mine. It became part of the memories of many children. August and September were the most sociable months, but in spring and early summer, and sometimes also around Christmas, there were people in most of the rooms too. In anything like summer, we used to sit out on the steps in the sun, walk in the demesne or the country round, drive to Bridgetown to swim in the Blackwater or to Youghal to swim in the sea. In wet weather we played deck tennis or French cricket up in the Long Room. In the A CLEAN END 1960S 199 evenings we played vingt-et-un at Henry IV’s card tables in the library, or paper games in the half-ring of chairs round the fire. Superficially, my way of living at Bowen’s Court, either alone or in company, could not have been more unlike, in idea and manner, that of my grandfather Robert. It was less reflective and diligent than Henry V’s, less racy than Henry IV’s, less ample than Henry III’s. But the house stamped its character on all ways of living: the same fundamental ran through them all. One year I stayed on at Bowen’s Court through the late autumn: for the first time I saw the last of the leaves hang glistening, here and there, in the transparent woods or flittering on the slopes of the avenues. The rooks subsided after their harvest flights; in the gale season one or two gulls, blown inland, circled over the lawns. I heard the woods roaring, and, like pistol shots, the cracking of boughs. For years the house had been empty at this season. At Christmas itself – and there were many Christmases – I remember no storms. All winds dropped then: a miraculous quiet rose from the land. When we came back from walking, at an hour when it would have been dark in England, the white mid-winter twilight was still reflected in the many windows. We had a cycle of mild Christmases – the moss up the trees was emerald, the hollies and laurels sticky with light; lambs had been born already; sun-pink mountains glowed behind the demesne. On one such Christmas morning we were able to sit on the steps, waiting for aunts and uncles, remaining children of Robert, to come to dinner. Only for Christmas dinner, eaten at midday, did I reopen my grandfather’s dining-room. Christmases, later, became colder: for one we had a thin fall of snow. Or, the lawns were tufted and crisp with hoar-frost; the sun rose tawny, the moon curdled through low lying, frosty mists. That change of temperature was no more than a return to the rule of the past – when...