Woman of the House (14 page)

“And why so, Nora?” he asked sympathetically.

“Because Kitty Conway will be all talk about Mossgrove and saying horrid things about us,” Nora said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Maybe she mightn’t.”

“She will, Jack; she’s always at me every chance she can get.”

So Ned had been right, he thought: one of the Conways was at Nora. But he decided that he had better tread carefully in case she’d shut up like a clam if he showed too much interest.

“Why is she at you?” he asked casually, pouring oil carefully into the axle of the wheel.

“Well, it’s better now,” she told him, “since I’m not sitting with her and I’m with Rosie Nolan.”

“How did you manage that change?”

“I thumped Kitty’s head off the desk,” she told him proudly.

“You did what?” he said in amazement, all pretence of not being interested gone.

“I did,” she said, proceeding to outline in detail the events of her first day back in school after the funeral. He
listened with interest, thinking that Miss Buckley was a fair bit of a bitch to treat a child like that after all she had been through.

“You handled that well,” he told Nora when she had finished her story.

“Do you think that I did, Jack?” she asked in delight, all sign of tears disappearing.

“You did so,” he said admiringly, “and you’ll handle Monday as well. When it comes to it, you won’t be afraid.”

“Do you think I won’t, Jack?” she asked doubtfully, “’cause I’m afraid of the thought of it.”

“Sometimes that’s the worst part of it,” he reassured her.

“Could be,” she agreed slowly, but then her eyes filled up with tears again and she sobbed: “I don’t want to leave Mossgrove. I want to stay here with you and Bran and Davy.”

He put down the oil can and sat on the shaft of the corn drill, where she climbed on to his knee and put her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder. He let her cry for a while, patting her head as he would Bran. Then he unwound her arms from around his neck and, taking her by the shoulders, he held her back so that he could look into her eyes.

“Listen, Nora, it is now the beginning of April, and the sale is not until the end of May, so that’s a good few weeks away. A lot can happen in that much time. I’m not saying that it won’t be sold, but I’m hoping to God for all our sakes that it won’t happen.”

“I’m praying to Dada,” she confided, “since the day Kitty Conway said it. But so far he hasn’t done anything about it only to let it happen,” she finished disconsolately.

“Well, we can’t lose heart,” Jack told her, “or if we do
we’re finished. So you keep praying and I’ll keep running the place, and who knows: maybe this time next year we’ll be still here.”

He wished that he could feel as confident as his talk, but he hated to see her so dejected. She brightened up and smiled at him and then slid off his knee.

“You’re nearly as good as Dada was for making things all right,” she told him as she dried her eyes and straightened her shoulders. “And now I think I’ll go down to look at the tadpoles in the frog spawn in the Glen and see if they’ve come out.”

As she ran out of the haggard Jack thought that it was great to be ten and to be able to forget your troubles in the pursuit of tadpoles. He wondered if it was fair to be encouraging her to think that Mossgrove might not be sold when in his heart he did not really believe it.

Do you know something, Jack, he said to himself, you’d want to be God to do the right thing here today.

He sat there looking around the old cart-house. In here was stored the square timber butt that was used to shift the big dung-hills from outside the cow stalls and stables. He had been planning to do that soon. Parked behind and almost under the butt was the low mowing machine with its back-slung iron seat. When that came out the hay rakes and the pikes had to be taken down from the rafters above. Beneath them the wheel raker and the swath turner that came out for the hay making. Hanging off the wall were the slatted timber sidings that went on to the creamery cart when the bonhams were taken to the fair. The big shed was full of the machinery that kept the farm going, and the old man had trained him well in the care of it.

The birds made this open-fronted shed their own, and he had to throw an old sheet over the trap to keep it free of their droppings. Anything else in there did not have to be protected as it all belonged to the open fields anyway. In this shed he had spent many a long winter day doing repairs. There was great satisfaction in cutting a piece of timber and planing it to the exact size to fit snugly into a portion that was showing wear and tear. There was a sense of achievement in a job like that well done. He had many hours of deep-rooted satisfaction in here. Now he walked around and ran his hand lovingly over the long shafts and the cool iron seats. He had enjoyed looking after them and was proud of their condition. But what was to become of all his well-cared-for farm machinery?

Later, as he walked home up the boreen, he decided that it had been an unreal kind of day. When he had got engrossed in something he could almost forget that they were for sale, and then it would hit him like a ton of bricks and nearly take the heart out of him. He had thought that Kate might have called, but as the day wore on and that hope faded, he felt more disheartened.

Maybe Kate would stand aside and let Martha go ahead without protest. Why should she bother anyway; it was no skin off her nose. Kate had her good job, and maybe now with Ned gone Mossgrove did not mean as much to her. After all, it was Martha’s responsibility, and Nora and Peter were her children, and she would be very quick to tell Kate that.

As he opened the back gate Toby went wild with delight and Jack stooped down to pat him on the head.

“Glad to see that someone is in good humour anyway,” he said. Looking around the little yard he was pleased to
see the henhouse closed. God bless you, Sarah, he thought, you’re a great neighbour. Just then she appeared around the side of the cottage.

“I lit the fire for you, Jack,” she told him; “it’s after turning chilly. Kate said to tell you that she will be back to you later on.”

“Oh, will she?” he said with relief, his face breaking into a smile. “I was half expecting her below all day.”

“Well, something turned up,” Sarah told him, “and maybe it was just as well not to call today. Things might get said that were better left unsaid.”

“Maybe the time for talking out has come,” Jack told her grimly. “A few people have taken more than their due from our woman below. It could be that it’s time to take the bull by the horns. We have nothing to lose now, and there is no one to be hurt.”

“Jack, you’re in fighting form!” she said in alarm.

“Do you know something, Sarah, I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s bad to put up with too much, because then people will give you plenty to put up with. The old man put up with nothing, and by God no one trod on his toes and got away with it.”

“Could be that you have a point,” she admitted slowly, “but that was never your way, Jack, and you’re a bit long in the tooth to be changing direction at this stage.”

“Sarah, you’re a great one for keeping things in perspective. Will you come in for a cup of tea?”

“No, yourself and Kate need time to thrash things out between you, so I’ll be off. I might call back to Agnes – this is not easy on her either.”

He tidied up the kitchen quickly and put extra turf on the fire. He was so glad that Kate was coming. For a bit
there, coming up the boreen, he had lost heart, thinking that she no longer cared about Mossgrove. He should have known better. You could always depend on Kate to be there when you wanted her. Look at the way she had got Martha out of the bed, though on second thoughts maybe they should have left her there. But of course that was no solution either, because they could not have kept going on that way. He was delighted that she was coming because no one else could understand the situation like her. Even though Sarah had been great last night she did not share his feeling for Mossgrove. Kate knew exactly how he felt about the place because she felt the same way. There was great comfort in talking to someone like that. He sat by the fire, eased off his heavy boots and stretched his toes out to the fire. It was not yet dark and he liked to sit in the half light by the fire.

He must have dozed off because when he opened his eyes again Kate was sitting across the fire from him with the Maggie on her lap and Toby stretched out at her feet.

“Didn’t like to wake you,” she said gently; “you probably needed the little sleep.”

“Old age must be catching up with me at last, Kate,” he told her, straightening himself up, “to be dozing off in the chair like an old man.”

“The upset of this sale is enough to put years on all of us.”

“What do you make of it?” he asked wearily.

“She intends to go ahead with it,” Kate said, “but we’ll give it a fair try to make her change her mind anyway.”

“Do you think it’s possible?” Jack asked.

“No, I don’t,” Kate admitted, “but we can’t give up without a struggle of some sort. We’re not beaten until the
hammer goes down on the day of the sale. Then the Conways will move in.”

“Christ, the old man will turn in his grave.” Jack shook his head in desperation. “Of course they’re interested and the money will come from over the water.”

“That’s right,” Kate told him; “had it all for nothing from Matt Conway this morning. Delighted to tell me, of course.”

“Dear God! Did I ever think that I’d see this day, that the Conways would move in to Mossgrove. If it weren’t for them we could hold it, because if we sent out the word that we didn’t want it sold, no other neighbour would bid. But of course we can’t do that now, because that would mean that the Conways would get it for half nothing.”

“I had thought of that too,” Kate said, “because in actual fact Martha is in no fit state to make a decision like this right now. She could be sorry next year.”

“Too late then,” Jack sighed; “you can’t unsell the sold.”

“It was the one thing that Nellie said after reading
Gone
with
the
Wind
,” Kate remembered. ‘Don’t ever sell land. Because when all else failed, Scarlet still had Tara.’”

“I think that if our Scarlet has her way there will be no Tara left,” Jack said bitterly.

“Now Jack, don’t let it get you down; we’re not out in the road like the tinkers, as Kitty Conway told Nora. By the way, do Nora and Peter know?”

“They do indeed,” he said and explained how it had happened.

“Strange woman,” she commented when he had finished. “I’ve been thinking, and I decided that some morning next week when they’re gone to school I’ll call on Martha and try a persuading job. It would be better if they were not there in case I get carried away.”

“Maybe it’s time that someone got carried away.”

“God, Jack, that’s a change of approach coming from you,” Kate said in surprise; “your policy was always a bit like Nellie’s – don’t rock the boat.”

“Maybe I was wrong, and maybe we’ve been tiptoeing around Martha for far too long.”

“So you think, Jack, that it’s time to take off the kid gloves?”

“I do,” Jack said with conviction.

“I’ll remember that when I go to Mossgrove.”

F
R
B
URKE, A
large, red-faced man, stood with his back to the altar. A rosary of chins cascaded down on to his white alb. He was busy turning the Blessed Trinity into a bigger mystery than it had ever been in the minds of his congregation. Most of them had parted company with him shortly after he had embarked on his complicated unravelling, and they were busy thinking of yesterday’s activities or intent on tomorrow’s plans.

We are a very tolerant people, Kate thought, to have put up with his pompous expounding for as long as she could remember. She sometimes wondered if he knew or cared that most of the parish slept open-eyed through his sermons. They were too polite to close their eyes and doze off in front of him, but if somebody found themselves comfortably placed behind a lady with a large hat they availed of the shelter she afforded them and blissfully closed their eyes. St Paul could never have anticipated that his
instruction to the women of Jerusalem would in the course of history be a blessing to the suffering people of Kilmeen. Why was it, she wondered, that the priests who gave the most boring sermons felt the need to keep going. Fr Brady was interesting and never continued longer than your concentration span, whereas Fr Burke was like a cawing crow who could not find a suitable branch for landing so he kept circling.

Finally, with a heartfelt “Thanks be to God”, the relieved congregation blessed themselves and hurriedly left the church. Outside in the general milieu she met David, who was immaculately groomed and looked so attractive that her heart gave a jerk at the sight of him.

“David, you look as if you have just walked out of a gentlemen’s tailoring establishment,” she smiled at him. “I never saw you so dressed up before.”

“You haven’t forgotten,” he asked worriedly, “that we’re going to meet his nibs at three o’clock, have you?”

“Of course not,” she told him.

She had been surprised when David had asked her to accompany him on his visit to the parish priest to get sanction for the new school. David had already written to Fr Burke from Dublin but had heard nothing back, so he had arranged a meeting while on holidays. It was his father who had suggested that it might be a good idea to have Kate go along as well. The Doc thought that Kate, having no axe to grind, might strengthen David’s case. The P.P. and Nellie had been good friends, so he felt that maybe the sight of Kate might soften the old boy. Kate had her doubts about that possibility, but when David asked her she felt that he, too, must have thought that she might be an asset. She was only too happy to do anything to help.

“You’re coming back to our place for a bite to eat first, aren’t you?” he asked.

“As I told your father yesterday, I can never say no to Hannah’s cooking,” she told him, “and Hannah doesn’t give you a bite to eat, she packs you up to the gills.”

“That’s right,” he agreed, patting his stomach. “I’ve even put on a few pounds since I came home.”

“Well, that’s no harm to you, you’re just skin and bone.”

“You can’t fatten quality,” he said smiling.

“What are the two of you sparring about?” Sarah Jones asked, joining them. She was neat and trim in a brown coat with a matching hat framing her white hair.

“We’re going up to the P.P. after dinner,” David told her.

“Well, I never thought it was that serious between you two,” Sarah joked.

Oh God, Sarah! Kate thought, I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.

“One thing at a time now, Sarah,” David laughed. “We have our hands full at the moment. Kate has told you about the school?”

“She has indeed,” Sarah said seriously, “and I wish you luck this evening, and let me know how things go. But now I must get moving and do my bit of shopping before heading home.”

As she walked briskly away from them, Kate looked after her in admiration. “She’s really an amazing woman for her years: she’d be in her mid-sixties now and she’d pass for twenty years younger.”

“She was always full of energy,” David agreed, “and so interested in everything. She’s very keen for this school to get going, isn’t she?”

“That’s Sarah all out,” Kate told him. “Maybe it’s the fact that she delivered the most of them that she is so conscious of the welfare of the children. She has great interest in the school.”

“Well, we’ll keep her posted. But we had better get going or we’ll be late for Hannah’s dinner, and that would never do.”

Just as she turned to go she felt eyes fastened on her and looked across the street to find Matt Conway staring at her with a malevolent look on his face. Never had she encountered such naked hatred. Feeling suddenly chilled, she shivered.

“Are you all right, Kate?” David asked with concern.

“I think that someone has just walked over my grave,” she said.

“Ah, come on, Kate,” he said, “there are enough daft notions around here without you adding to them.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she agreed, pulling herself together and thinking that it was silly to be frightened by an ignorant lump like Matt Conway.

As they walked down the street she was happy to have David beside her and she could feel the old sense of excitement in his presence. She wondered if there was any romance in his life in Dublin. If there was somebody in Dublin he would hardly be planning to come back to Kilmeen. While these thoughts ran through her head she realised that he was talking beside her.

“I’m going over to see old Hobbs in Ross next week,” he was saying. “I wrote to the address in America that you gave Dad. Hobbs would have an idea of the rent expected and it might be no harm to get in touch with him as well. You dealt with him about that house before, didn’t you? Would
you like to come with me? You might think of something that I’d forget,” he finished.

“If this school gets going I’ll be looking for my cut out of it,” she smiled, “but of course I’ll come. What day are you going?”

“Would Monday week be all right with you?” he asked. “Because I wrote to him and he wrote back, that that was the soonest he could see me.”

“That’s fine. Old Hobbs doesn’t move in a hurry, and anyway during this week I’m going to Mossgrove and not looking forward to it.”

“Dad was telling me about it,” he said. “Any hope of changing her mind, do you think?”

“Very little, I’d say,” she shook her head, “but at least I’ll have a shot at it. It’s really too soon after the shock of Ned’s death for Martha to make a wise decision. If she goes ahead now she could be sorry in a few years time, and as well as that there are the children. They want to stay where they are and they need the security of Mossgrove right now.”

“You’ve enough on your plate at the moment, haven’t you, without my problems on top of it?” he asked as they turned off the pavement up the stone steps to his home. The brass door knob gleamed on the dark green door and David pushed it open and led her into the spacious black-and-white-tiled hall.

“Strangely enough,” she told him, “I find it a distraction from what’s happening in Mossgrove, so it’s a good thing really. Otherwise the sale of Mossgrove might get on top of me.”

“I’m glad,” he said, taking her coat and hanging it on the tall hall-stand beside the stairs. “And now we’re
going to enjoy Hannah’s dinner and forget all our troubles for an hour.”

Hannah came bustling from the back of the hall, a navy blue overall belted around an ample waist and her snow-white hair caught back in a knot behind a round red face. She was a large woman with a heart to match, and her one aim in life was to make things easier for the Doc, whom she felt the entire parish were trying to kill with their night calls and constant demands. Kate was a favourite because she was deemed to lighten his load whenever possible.

“Kate, you’re welcome,” she smiled, pointing towards the door at the foot of the stairs. “Himself is inside reading the papers. David, you come in and take out the soup for me.”

“At your service,” he said, following her back the hallway to disappear under the curving staircase into the kitchen. Kate knew that the door beside her opened into the living room, which had a connecting door through to the kitchen.

As she pushed the door open the warmth of the fire swept out against her. It was a large, high-ceilinged room with a long table in the centre and sagging chairs and sofas overflowing with floppy cushions around the fire. The Doc was stretched out on the sofa nearest to the fire with a cat asleep across his knees and a stack of newspapers scattered on the floor around him.

“Kate, you’re welcome,” he said, smiling; he attempted to remove the cat but she stuck in her claws and refused to be disturbed.

“Don’t upset her; stay where you are,” Kate told him, settling into a small, deep chair by the fire. The white marble fireplace curved over her and the deep grate was full of glowing logs.

“Hannah believes in a good fire,” she smiled.

“Always,” he said. “It’s great to come in here on a cold evening and stretch out before the fire.”

“She has you spoilt.”

“Don’t I know, and it’s great to have her.”

Kate knew that Hannah had kept this house a home after his wife Joan had died. The two women had been old neighbours over in Ross, and even when Joan was alive Hannah was second in command, and indeed sometimes first if she did not agree with something that was being done. She had been like an aunt to his children, and when their mother died she had become more.

“Will everybody please be seated,” David instructed, coming through from the kitchen bearing a tray of steaming soup bowls and placing them at the four places set on the table.

The Doc uncurled himself off the couch and eased the protesting cat on to the floor where she arched her back and headed underneath the table.

The soup was thick and creamy and Kate felt that it was a meal in itself, but Hannah followed up with laden plates of main course. When Kate remarked that the spring lamb was delicious, Hannah smiled and said, “Could be Mossgrove lamb: Danny the butcher and his father before him always bought from the Phelans, as you know.”

“It tastes wonderful anyway,” Kate told her, thinking that they might not be buying Phelan lambs much longer.

“This is a grand time of the year,” said the Doc, sensing her train of thought: “lambs and daffodils and the first of the rhubarb. Isn’t that right, Hannah?”

“You stole into the kitchen,” she accused him, “and you saw the rhubarb.”

“Have you got rhubarb already, Hannah?” Kate asked in surprise.

“I put an old iron bucket over it to bring it on fast,” Hannah told her. “I wanted to have it for David for Easter. He always loved rhubarb since he was a small, bold brat.”

“Oh, Hannah, you’re a brick!” David said. “I can never remember an Easter that you did not have rhubarb and custard. To me nothing’s better than rhubarb and custard at Easter.”

Kate had to agree with him when Hannah brought a big bowl of pink rhubarb in from the kitchen.

“Do you know the Irish for rhubarb?” David asked Kate.

“No,” she answered in a puzzled voice, “can’t say that I ever heard it.”

“Ah, David, for goodness sake,” Hannah protested, “why do you always have to remind us of that every year?”

“What is it anyway?” Kate asked.

“Purgoid na manac.”

“Does that mean what I think it means?”

“I don’t know how good your Irish is,” David said, “but it means the purgative of the monks. It was the only laxative they had long ago in the monasteries.”

“Well, you learn something new every day,” Kate said. “Will we take some of it up to Fr Burke?”

“Oh, Kate, you’re not the nice girl that I thought your were,” David laughed, and the Doc and Hannah joined in.

They finished with cups of tea and light pastry oozing cream. Kate felt that she could lie down on one of the comfortable couches and sleep peacefully for the evening. But David had his eye on the clock, and as soon as the last plate was carried back to the kitchen he said, “We’ll head up towards the presbytery now. He’ll be looking for
excuses to get the better of us, so we’d better start with a clean slate.”

Kate rose reluctantly to her feet, thinking how pleasant it would be to spend the afternoon here with himself and the Doc, instead of facing up to Fr Burke, whom she had always found a bit hard to take. As well as that, she was a little worried that she might not say the right thing. She knew how important this was to David and she wanted to do everything she could to help him. Maybe I’m trying to impress him, she decided.

As they walked up the street with the Doc and Hannah’s good wishes ringing in their ears, she could sense David’s tension. This school is very important to him, she thought, which had the effect of making her feel even more nervous.

The avenue to the parochial house curved in behind the church. It was a large, imposing house with bare green lawns and no flowers. When David lifted the heavy black iron knocker, the bang seemed to thunder through silence.

“Good God,” he whispered, “I never thought it would make such a racket – ’twould wake the dead.”

“Never mind,” Kate assured him, “it’s probably faint enough from the other side,” and she had to make an effort to stop herself from giggling.

Then they could hear bolts being drawn back; the door opened slowly, and Lizzy the housekeeper’s nose came around the edge. A tall, thin woman with black sparse hair, her nose was her dominant feature, and she sniffed the air around her as if nothing about it pleased her.

“Good afternoon, Lizzy,” David greeted her pleasantly, “we have an appointment with Fr Burke.”

“Not finished yet,” she informed them in disapproving tones.

“Can we come in and wait?” Kate asked as Lizzy made no attempt to open the door further.

“I suppose so,” she said grudgingly, and slowly opened back the door just wide enough for them to get in sideways.

“Wait here,” she told them and disappeared back a long brown corridor.

Kate looked around and realised that, even though she had not been in here for years, nothing had changed. Everything was brown. The lino on the floor and running up the stairs was a dark brown with white linking along the sides. The stairs themselves wore many coats of varnish that did not fit snugly on top of each other but bubbled up along the handrail in foxy protest. The walls were covered in beige wallpaper and the picture rail bore brown, sad-faced saints who could not muster up a smile between them. On the huge hall-stand carved gargoyles snarled at each other under Fr Burke’s hats.