A Story Lately Told Read Online Free Page A

She was modest, tolerant, gentle, and firm—sort of like Mary Poppins without the umbrella, and Irish. She wore the high starched collars and light-cotton denim dresses that she had worn at her former job, looking after babies in a Dublin hospital. When Mum asked her how she wanted to be addressed, she replied simply, “Nurse.” She was as fair and kind as any soul I’ve ever met, and Tony and I adored her. Nurse was a steadying force throughout our childhood and devoted herself selflessly to us. Above all, she was dedicated to Mum.
    I remember Betty O’Kelly coming into my room to say good night and asking if I could fasten the little crystal-cut buttons at the nape of her pale lemon silk blouse. She had been a debutante, a well-born Anglo-Irish girl, cheerful and innocent. Now in her late twenties, she was sportive, fun, pretty, and an exceptionally fine horsewoman. She lived in the nearby village of Kilcullen with her family and had taken to riding over to Courtown House with some regularity; she had befriended my parents and introduced them to the local gentry and to the members of the Kildare Hunt Club. My father had great regard for women on horseback. The sight of Betty mounted on a fine Irish mare must have enchanted him. “Betts,” as we came to know her, had an intrepid spirit. She had driven anambulance for the Wrens, the Women’s Royal Naval Service, during the Second World War and could change a tire in ten minutes, which was a good thing if you were ever stranded out in the bogs with her.
    It was Betty who brought Paddy Lynch, an ex-jockey, to work as a groom for Dad’s horses, and he remained with us for the following twenty years. Small in stature, Paddy was fine-boned with blue eyes and clear brown skin, and he always wore a tweed jacket, glasses, and a cloth cap.
    In the fall, we would go with Paddy into the woods to plug up foxholes; if the cubs were shut out of their dens, there would be more to chase when they were homeless in hunting season. We had a beautiful little pony trap—a varnished two-wheeler that moved along at a pretty fast clip. I loved being bundled up in blankets on Mum’s lap, watching Betts wield the reins and crack the whip. In the winter, I wore a green snowsuit, a hand-me-down from Tony. I hated the look and feel of it when it was zipped up tight to my chin. It made me claustrophobic.
    Betts taught Tony and me how to make an apple-pie bed, with the sheet folded back on itself halfway, as a practical joke, so the victim could not get into bed. And when Dad’s friend and producer Ray Stark came to stay, she showed us how to place and activate an electric razor between the sheets so as to terrify him during the night.
    Another visitor was Count Friedrich von Ledebur, a member of the Austrian cavalry and a legendary horseman, who was married to Iris Tree, the daughter of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Friedrich was even taller than Dad and had piercing eyes in a sharply defined, aristocratic face. Dad had cast him as Queequeg in Moby Dick. I was afraid of him. He reminded me of a lion. It was obvious that Dad loved him and had great respect for him.
    Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted writer, also stayed at Courtown. He was a kind man, a sweet soul. It seems to me that of my father’s friends, the ones who were writers were more understanding, more interested, more engaged than the rest.
    We rode ponies early. I was given Honeymoon when I was four. She was very old and expired under me mysteriously as I was cantering her around a field. One morning, walking with Nurse, we were surprised when Tony came out of the woods riding his pony, Paddy Lynch holding the lead rein. When the animal saw us, he suddenly reared up and bolted. Paddy lost hold of the halter and Tony fell. We watched in horror as his foot caught in the stirrup and he was dragged, his head bouncing on the gravel, all the way up the driveway. When the pony came to a shivering halt outside the front doors of the house, my