‘Well it ain’t; I had measles when I was ten and I don’t recall the spots itching, or not like these does anyway. And besides, they haven’t come all over exactly. I lay on my left side last night and the spots is all over my left arm, left leg and left side.’ He glared at Polly, who was giggling. ‘If you’ve ever heard of a case of measles which just affects someone’s left side, then it’s more’n I have. Why are you laughing?’
‘Because I’ve just noticed your left cheek and neck,’ Polly said. ‘Oh, poor old Ernie, I’m really sorry because it’s not a bit funny for you, and you’re right, of course, we should get a proper lodging. We’ll do as you say; catch a bus heading in the right direction, then maybe walk a bit until the sun goes down, and after that find somewhere to stay.’ She got to her feet as she spoke and held out her hands to pull Ernie to his, then the two of them packed up their belongings and set off for the main road they had left the evening before.
When they reached a stream they parted by common consent to have a strip-down wash and Polly judged, by the cries of dismay reaching her ears, that as soon as he began to remove his clothing Ernie discovered that his little companions of the previous night were with him
still. Sure enough when he reappeared he was clad in his only change of garments, whilst the shirt and trousers he had worn the night before were still dripping from vigorous washing. ‘I’ve drowned the little buggers,’ he said triumphantly as he re-joined his companion. ‘And now let’s get back to the main road and flag down the first bus we see going in the right direction.’
‘Or any car or lorry which looks like the driver might give us a lift. We’ve done pretty well out of lifts one way and another,’ Polly reminded him. ‘Besides, Ireland isn’t a huge country; we don’t want to fall off the other end!’
They spent that night in a cottage where an elderly man and his wife welcomed them and asked two shillings for the room and a breakfast of porridge. ‘And as much soda bread as you can eat,’ their hostess promised them. The couple showed them the room which their own children had occupied before they left home, and accepted without question Ernie’s assurance that he and Polly were brother and sister.
The woman took Ernie’s wet clothes and draped them on the clothes horse before the fire, since the rain which had held off during most of the day came on again as evening approached. As the young adventurers got into wilder and less inhabited country they found it more and more difficult to understand local speech, but they were lucky with their host and hostess on this particular night. Both had come from Dublin and their brogue was easy to understand. As Polly had remarked to Ernie on more than one occasion, the locals who stopped speaking as soon as the English couple came within earshot might just as well have saved themselves the trouble, since neither she nor Ernie could understand a word they said.
As soon as Ernie had agreed with their landlady that they would take the room, he asked whether she might provide an evening meal. ‘We meant to buy provisions in villages as we passed through, or even at farmhouses when the owners were willing to sell, but this is a very lonely part of the country and we’ve had no opportunity to buy anything,’ he explained. Mrs O’Brien said at once that for another two shillings she could do them mashed potatoes, eggs from their own hens and sausages from the pig they had killed the previous autumn, a suggestion which made Polly’s mouth water. Whilst they were spreading out their bedrolls on the big double mattress and Polly was urging Ernie to ignore his spots and stop scratching, however, something rather more important occurred to her.
‘Ernie, you told Mrs O’Brien a whopper! Is it – is it very wrong for two people who aren’t related to sleep in the same bed? Only why else did you tell Mrs O’Brien that we were brother and sister?’
‘I ain’t too sure, Polly,’ Ernie admitted, and saw Polly’s brow clear. Incurably honest, however, he added: ‘Some folk might say it weren’t right, of course, but who’s to know? Only you and me, and we ain’t likely to spill the beans.’
Polly stared at him for a long unnerving moment. ‘I’ll sleep on the floor,’ she said decidedly. ‘I’ve slept in worse places and at least Mrs O’Brien’s house is beautifully clean. I don’t believe either of us will get bit here.’
‘I don’t see why we can’t share the bed if we put a pillow between us; that’s what they did in the hostel when two of us had to share,’ Ernie said. ‘It’d be all right, honest to God it would.’
Polly heaved a sigh but stood firm, and though Ernie tried to persuade her that he would actually prefer to sleep on the floor she would not hear of it. It was probably a good job, since poor Ernie’s flea bites kept him awake during the early part of the night and when Mrs O’Brien popped in to say breakfast would be on the table in five minutes he was deeply asleep whilst Polly, fully dressed, had rolled up her bedroll and was repacking her haversack.
The previous evening, upon their asking how far away Castletara might be, their hostess had cast an imploring glance at her husband. ‘Sure and ’tis foolish I am over t’ings like distances,’ she admitted. ‘And I scarce ever go into the village unless Mr O’Brien here drives the donkey cart in to collect animal feed, and takes me along for a day out. Mr O’Brien, you know about distances …’
Mr O’Brien smiled in a superior fashion and patted his wife’s hand. ‘’Tis twenty minutes by donkey cart and forty on foot,’ he told them. ‘That’s to the village, of course. To visit the Tara house – only you’re not likely to do that – you’d have to double the time, for ’tis furder from here.’
Both his guests assured him mendaciously that they only wanted to visit the village and ate their breakfast with real enjoyment, for it looked as though their quest was almost over and they would soon be at the McBrides’ ancestral home and able, they hoped, to ascertain that all was well there. Presently they bade goodbye to the O’Briens, and shouldered their haversacks, and were about to depart when Polly had a bright idea. She turned to Mrs O’Brien, standing in the doorway to wave them off whilst a flock of fat and happy poultry clucked at
her feet, obviously convinced that they were about to be fed again. ‘Mrs O’Brien, our business in Castletara will probably take most of the day, and we shan’t much fancy setting off to return to Dublin as dusk deepens,’ she said. ‘If we could leave our bedrolls with you, might we ask for another night’s lodging?’
Before her speech was half over Mrs O’Brien was nodding vigorously. ‘Two shillings for the room and breakfast and two shillings for supper,’ she said happily. She waded through the sea of poultry, took both bedrolls, tucked them under her arm and disappeared into the cottage, leaving a flock of puzzled hens behind her.
‘Are you sure you’ve done the right thing, Poll?’ Ernie asked as they set off along the narrow lane which they now knew led to Castletara. ‘Oh, I know the O’Briens were ever so nice, but we’ve never met their children, and if one of them pops in and fancies our bedrolls …’
‘Ernie Frost, sometimes I despair of you,’ Polly said reprovingly. ‘The O’Briens won’t allow anyone apart from ourselves to so much as enter that room until we leave it tomorrow morning. Now, let’s go and take a look at Dana’s home. We’ll see what sort of state it’s in and then try to get to know somebody who likes a gossip, either someone from the village or someone from the house itself.’
Despite Ireland’s reputation for being a land where the rain fell more frequently than the sun shone, it was a lovely day. A gentle breeze stirred the branches overhead and despite the seriousness of their quest both Polly and Ernie felt a lifting of the heart as they made their way along the high-banked, twisty little lanes which led first to Castletara village and then, they were told, to the house itself.
‘If I lived here I’d never have left, not if it were ever so,’ Polly said wistfully as they walked. She paused to pluck a handful of little wild strawberries and shared them with Ernie, though he did not show the gratitude she expected.
‘What a lot of pips,’ he grumbled. ‘Don’t bother to give me no more; you can have the rest.’
Presently they found themselves entering the village, which, rather to their surprise, was a good deal bigger than they had imagined, certainly bigger than most of the villages through which they had passed. It had a blacksmith’s forge, and a wheelwright, though that appeared to be part of the blacksmith’s premises, as well as a feed merchant, a bakery, and a general store. Ireland did not seem to have public houses, but as in other villages Castletara’s general store doubled as a purveyor of alcoholic beverages. The shop itself was of a reasonable size, the floor covered with sawdust and the walls lined with forms upon which customers could sit to enjoy their drinks. It was still early in the morning, but because it was such a warm day the two outside benches alongside the shop were occupied by several old men, two of them smoking pipes whilst the other three must have done their shopping, for they had large bags by their sides from which protruded loaves of bread still steaming gently. Everyone bade everyone else good morning, and then Ernie nudged Polly. ‘No use asking them questions until we know what questions to ask,’ he said. ‘And I bet they only speak Irish. It’ll be different up at the house; we know they speak English, because Dana does. Come on, will you; them old fellers is staring at us as though we were critters
out of the zoo. Just bid ’em good morning again and leave ’em wondering.’
Polly obeyed, seeing the sense of Ernie’s remark, and once again they threaded their way through incredibly beautiful countryside until at last their progress was halted by a high stone wall and two wrought iron gates, though these were flung open to show a neatly gravelled drive with a small but very pretty cottage to one side. ‘That’s a lodge; all big houses have a lodge at their gates,’ Ernie whispered. ‘The lodge keeper is supposed to see that no unwanted people get into the grounds of the castle, or manor, or whatever. Then at night – as soon as it grows dusk really – he’ll close the gates and anyone wanting admission will have to holler out, or toot a horn, I guess, if they are in a car or a lorry. Folk on foot might get by – burglars and that – but a pal of mine told me once that’s why rich folk gravel their drives. Even the lightest footfall on gravel makes a crunching noise and most lodge keepers have a dog what’ll give the alarm if it hears the crunch.’
‘Gosh,’ Polly said, sinking her voice to a whisper. ‘What’ll we do, Ern? I thought Dana’s folk had fallen on hard times. I remember Dana saying that the garden was a wilderness and the roof of her tower bedroom leaked. She said the big lawn was a hayfield and some of the windows needed panes replacing. This place looks like Buckingham Palace!’
Ernie laughed. ‘You’ve only seen the lodge, the gates and a bit of the drive,’ he said. ‘Let’s go take a look at the house itself. There’s no one about as far as I can see.’
‘Well, all right. Since we’ve come so far I suppose we’ve got to take a look,’ Polly agreed. ‘If we could just
find Deirdre, or that boy Con even, we might be able to ask questions without being thought nosy. Only let’s not walk on the gravel. The trees on either side are thick enough to hide an army in, so we should be safe from observation, unless we want to be seen.’
They set off, wending their way through beech, oak, pines and elders until they saw ahead of them a lightening of the shade, and presently they emerged from the trees to see Castletara ahead of them. ‘This must be the great lawn Dana talked about,’ Polly said in a hushed whisper. ‘But it’s not a hayfield, the grass is green and short. And look, the flowerbeds under the windows are full of what look like roses – wonderful roses of every colour you can imagine. Oh, Ernie, have we come to the right place? Or was Dana talking about her dreams and not reality? Oh, I just don’t understand!’
Much later that day Polly and Ernie found themselves a comfortable bank upon which to sit and unwrapped the soda bread, the pat of butter and the small jar of strawberry jam they had purchased in the village. Ernie took out his clasp knife, divided the bread, spread butter and jam and handed her half to Polly. Then for a moment they simply stared at one another before Ernie broke the silence. ‘Well, that’s given us something to think about!’ he observed wryly. ‘You got a picture of vanished splendour which you passed on to me, and certainly whenever Dana mentioned her old home, which wasn’t often, it was to say how run down it had become, how her father was the only man who could bring it back into good heart and how he was only interested in the stud farm.’
Polly nodded violently and licked a dribble of jam from the edge of her soda bread. ‘That’s right. But the Castletara we saw this morning was just about perfect. It must take an army of gardeners to keep the place up to the mark and that girl, Enda, the one who walked back to the village with us, says the McBrides employ a dozen men outside and a dozen women inside. She says Americans pay good money to stay in a castle, so it sounds as though the McBrides have another source of income beside the horses.’
‘I agree, but if you ask me there’s something very odd going on. When we asked that girl about the accident, she didn’t seem to know what we were talking about, not at first …’
‘Ah, but remember Dana’s been in England for at least three years,’ Polly interrupted. ‘Three years is a long time. But what gets me is the fact that the girl talked about “the master”, said the McBrides were a wonderful family so they were, everybody thought so. So do you think Dana can have made a terrible mistake? Seen her father’s face all covered in blood and run away before they knew he was going to live? I think we ought to ask a few more questions – in the village this time – before we get hold of the wrong end of the stick.’
Ernie agreed. The pair settled down to eat the food they had bought, and then returned to the village. They saw Enda, who waved to them as they approached the blacksmith’s forge and came over for a few words, but as soon as she had taken herself off the blacksmith tapped his head significantly. ‘She’s a grand gorl, so she is,’ he said in his heavily accented brogue. ‘But not one of de brightest, you understand. She telled me you’d been up
to the big house, talkin’ about the dreadful accident. It’s not somethin’ we talk about, nor do the McBrides. It were turble, turble, but it happened six years ago and it’s over. So if I were you, young master and missie, I’d leave the past to take care of itself.’