Woman of the House (20 page)

“There was never need for you to be jealous of anybody, David,” she told him honestly, then asked hurriedly: “What time are you leaving this evening?”

“Dad is taking me to catch the six o’clock train.”

“You’ll just have time for a quick cup of tea when you get home,” she said looking at her watch. “Thanks for today; David. If I had not gone in with you I might never have found out what I did.”

“You have been such a help to me with all this business about the school,” he told her with feeling, “that I’m glad you benefited in some way out of it.”

“We’ll call it quits, so,” she smiled as they pulled up in front of her own door.

“I’m looking forward to the summer,” David said as she got out of the car. “It will be great fun painting and doing up the school.”

“It will indeed,” she agreed, wondering if that was what she had to look forward to – a summer painting walls in order to be with him.

“Goodbye,” she said as she closed the door of the car. But he leaned across and wound down the window and grinned out at her.

“Kate,” he asked, “might we go for a walk across the bog again this summer?”

“We might indeed,” she beamed at him.

“And this time there will be no Jack to haul us home,” he told her, and she knew then that she was part of his plan in returning to Kilmeen.

When she got inside the door she kicked off her shoes and shot them back along the hall and danced into the sitting room until she stood in front of Grandfather Phelan’s picture.

“We’ve made it,” she told him joyfully. “We’ve made it!”

Then she got a strange feeling that she was not alone. She turned around slowly, and Matt Conway was sitting in a chair in the corner by the window. A cold chill ran down her spine.

“How did you get in?” she demanded.

“You should lock your back door.”

“What do you want?” she breathed, and she could feel the fear crawling up her legs and along her hands.

“Just to settle a score. Did you think that you could come into my house and do what you did and get away with it?”

“It was your mother’s dying wish,” she told him.

“It was you who planted the idea in her head, and now you’re going to pay for it.”

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice shaking in spite of herself.

“Just a little bit of fun.”

“You’ll never get away with this.”

“Oh yes I will,” he said, “and one scream and I’ll bury this in you.”

She saw the glint of steel in his hand. I mustn’t panic, she told herself, but her mind refused to function. Play for time, she thought. He was still sitting in the chair, but he was nearer to the door than she was, so if she made a dash for it he would bring her down. She needed something heavy to defend herself. Her mother’s footstool was solid, and it was just beside her.

“Don’t try to be smart,” he threatened.

As he bent forward to heave his bulk out of the low chair she dived for the footstool and flung it across the room at him. It got him on the side of the head. He roared with rage and fell back into the chair. Just as he hoisted himself out of it again, she grabbed Grandfather Phelan off the wall, bringing hook and all with her, and as Matt Conway rose she crashed the big picture over his head and, with a splintering of glass, the frame came down over his shoulders. She ran for the door and he lunged after her, blood pouring down his face, but the frame held his arms. She dragged open the door and ran out into the street just as Julia Deasy dashed across the road.

“Who’s inside there?” she demanded. “I saw shadows inside the window.”

“It’s Matt Conway,” Kate gasped; “he was waiting inside for me when I came home.”

Julia dashed in the door and shouted out to Kate: “Run down to the barracks and bring up one of the guards. This fellow won’t go far – he’s bleeding like a pig.”

Kate ran down the street, but suddenly the face of old Molly Conway came back to her and she stopped. If this goes to court, she thought, Kitty and Mary will be dragged into it. All of a sudden she was icy calm. She would handle this her way.

She walked slowly back to the house where big hefty Julia was parked at the door of the front room armed with an old walking stick of grandfather’s.

“If you move,” she was threatening Matt Conway, “I’ll floor you.”

Slumped in the chair, his face covered with blood and the picture frame still around his shoulders, he did not look as if he could cause much trouble to anybody.

“Take this shagging thing from around my neck,” he yelled.

“You had better be careful how you move or you could get your throat cut,” Kate warned as she viewed the long slivers of protruding glass. She eased the picture carefully out over his head, but despite her care pointed edges of broken glass scraped his still bleeding face. He bellowed in pain.

When he was clear of the frame, she instructed Julia, “If he causes any trouble use that stick.”

“Without a doubt,” Julia said fiercely. “I’ve been wanting to do it for years.”

Kate stood in front of Matt Conway with a determined look on her face. “You listen to me now,” she told him grimly; “you’re only getting away with this on account of your mother, who was a superior specimen of humanity to
you. But you try anything like this again and you’ll finish up in jail.”

“I didn’t touch you,” he growled.

“Only because you didn’t get a chance,” Julia told him.

“Apart from today,” Kate said, choosing her words carefully on account of Julia, “there is the other affair. Fr Brady and Sarah Jones know about that.”

“Wonder you didn’t put it in the bloody
Eagle
,” he muttered.

“That’s exactly where it will be if you come near this place again, or if I find you skulking around the back.”

“Are you going to let me bleed to death?” he demanded.

“I’ll get my bag,” she told him, “and stitch you up.”

Half an hour later Matt Conway was cleaned and bandaged without a sign of blood in sight.

“Now you can get yourself home,” Kate told him, “and don’t you ever show your face in here again, or the next time you will bleed to death.”

“Will I be able to walk home after loosing all that blood?” Conway protested.

“You can crawl; it would be more suitable for you.”

“When we have Mossgrove,” he snarled as he lumbered towards the door, “you’ll never set a foot on it.”

When he was gone Julia looked at Kate with concern. “That was a nasty ordeal. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Kate assured her. “I never enjoyed stitching anybody so much.”

“There wasn’t much old guff out of him while that was going on,” Julia said with relish.

“No,” Kate agreed; “this little visit might keep him quiet for a while – and thanks, Julia, for all your help. You were the right woman in the right place.”

“I enjoyed the excitement,” she said, and Kate knew that Julia had further delights in store with the telling of the story.

“Now, we’d better see if there is much damage done to Grandfather Phelan,” she said.

“Not as much as he did to Matt Conway,” Julia smiled.

“That would have given him great satisfaction,” Kate said gleefully, examining the picture and deciding that it could be repaired with a certain amount of patience. Then she got a sudden idea that she would get Mark to paint a portrait from the picture. Why had she never thought of it before?

“Well if you’re sure you’ll be all right now,” Julia broke into her thoughts, “I’ll be off.”

“I’m grand,” Kate assured her, knowing that Julia wanted to get going with her exciting news.

When she closed the door behind Julia she noticed a note on the ground that had been pushed back into the corner. She picked it up and smoothed it out.

Please
call
tomorrow
evening
around
four
o’clock.

Martha.

T
HE FRONT DOOR
of Mossgrove stood open and sunshine poured into the small square hallway. The door into the parlour was also pushed back to reveal the long table covered with a flowing white damask cloth that skirted it to the ground. It was set for a meal and laden with the best of Martha’s baking. Behind the closed kitchen door to the right Kate could hear the murmur of voices. As she wondered what she should do, the kitchen door opened and Martha stood there. Kate looked at her, waiting for the next move. Martha held out her hand.

“Welcome, Kate,” she said quietly as she opened back the door, and Kate saw that Jack, Nora, Peter, Agnes and Mark were already in the kitchen.

“I have good news, so I thought that we would have a little bit of a get-together,” Martha told her.

“Mossgrove could do with good news for a change,” Kate said evenly, just as Nora ran across the kitchen to her.

“We’re having a party, Aunty Kate!” she almost sang with delight, a pretty dress on her and a happy smile lighting up her face.

“Norry, it’s not a party,” Peter protested, “and anyway we don’t know what it’s all about yet,” he finished with a dark look in his mother’s direction.

The adults, Kate saw, looked apprehensive, and she realised that she was the only one present, apart from Martha herself, who knew that the sale would not now take place.

“Come on now, everybody,” Martha announced, “up into the parlour and we’ll get started.” She led the way bearing a large teapot in her hands.

Taking her place at the head of the table, Martha looked at Kate, who sensed that she was going to be directed to the bottom.

But Agnes intervened: “I think as the only grandparent here I’ll take the other end of the table,” she said smiling, and she slipped into her chair. Peter sat to the right of his grandmother and Jack took the seat opposite. That had been Jack’s seat as far as back as Kate could remember. He liked to be able to sit at the table and at the same time to look out the window down over the fields of Mossgrove. She sat beside Jack for the same reason and Mark and Nora sat opposite to her. She smiled happily at Mark, thinking of the delight that the news about his paintings would bring him.

“Where’s Davy?” Peter demanded.

“He’ll be here in a minute,” Jack assured him. “He’s gone down to put out Conways’ cows. They’re after breaking in again.”

“It might not be worth his while putting them out,”
Peter muttered under his breath.

“Shush, Peter,” Agnes whispered.

They were all seated now, but for Martha, who remained standing, a fixed smile on her face.

“Before we start eating,” she began, “I have an announcement to make.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Davy?” Peter protested.

“This is a family matter,” Martha told him.

“Davy is better than family,” Peter said mutinously.

“It’s all right, Peter,” Jack assured him, “Davy won’t mind.”

“But I mind,” Peter insisted.

“Are we to sit here looking at each other until Davy drags himself up from the Mear na hAbhann?” Martha asked.

“I’ll see if he’s coming,” Peter told her, getting up and moving to the door. “I can see him coming,” he shouted back, and they heard him calling to Davy to hurry.

“Hurry is not Davy’s strong point,” Jack smiled.

“No,” Agnes agreed, “slow and sure was the way of all the Shines, and despite Ellen’s best efforts she failed to put speed into them.”

“Can’t change generations of back breeding I suppose,” Jack commented.

He and Agnes had their Sunday clothes on, and Kate realised that Martha had impressed on them that they were going to have tea in the parlour. As Sunday and Monday were the same to Mark, he wore no special clothes to mark the day. Davy came puffing in the door and came to a standstill when he saw them all around the table.

“Jasus! Nobody told me that we were having tay in the parlour.”

Peter shot a murderous glance at his mother.

“Let your dirty boots at the door,” Martha instructed him, and Davy dutifully complied while she went to the parlour press to fetch another setting, then laid it beside Kate. Davy arrived back in his stockinged feet and minus his working jumper and sat down heavily in the chair next to Kate. He grinned across at Peter.

“I want to sit at the other side of the table with Jack and Davy,” Peter announced.

“Good God, Peter,” Martha protested, “is there no satisfying you?”

“You can switch places with me,” Kate told him, going around the table and slipping into the chair between Mark and Nora. As Peter sat in between Jack and Davy, Kate knew that he wanted to be with the working men of Mossgrove.

“Now, are you all finally settled and sure that you are in the right place?” Martha asked in a voice tinged with annoyance.

“I think that everyone is happy now, Martha,” Agnes assured her quietly.

“As you all know,” Martha began, “I decided to sell Mossgrove a few weeks ago, and you have all been very much against that decision.”

“And we were right too,” Peter blurted out angrily.

“Well, I have changed my mind,” Martha announced, ignoring the interruption. “Mossgrove is no longer for sale.”

For a few seconds there was a stunned silence, followed by gasps of delight.

“Jasus, Missus,” Davy asked, “what made you change your mind?”

“The new school,” she said evenly. “Ned had wanted the children to be educated, and that was impossible with no school here, but now with the school the problem is solved and it’s better for the children to be here.”

“Better for you too and all of us,” Agnes told her, and Kate realised that Agnes did not want her grandchildren to feel that their mother was sacrificing herself for them. Then bedlam broke out, Peter and Davy cheering in delight and Nora running to the top of the table to hug her mother. Mark put his arm around Kate and hugged her, and she saw Jack and Agnes smile at each other and shake hands with joy. Then she felt Jack watching her across the table, put her hand across to him, and he grasped it warmly.

“Mossgrove is safe again, Kate, thank God,” he said with feeling.

She closed her eyes and felt the unseen presence of Grandfather, Nellie and Ned. On so many family occasions she had sat with them around this table, and now they were surely here to celebrate. Nellie had saved Mossgrove with her foresight. In life she had never taken from the dignity of another person, and now it would be her wish that Kate would not take from the dignity of Martha’s decision.

Jack’s voice broke into her thoughts: “I want to slip out for a minute,” he announced with a smile on his face as he rose from the table and left the room.

“Where’s Jack gone?” Nora asked in alarm.

“He won’t be long, I’m sure,” Kate assured her, thinking that Jack probably felt that they should celebrate the occasion in fitting style.

He was back straight away carrying a dusty bottle wrapped in torn newspaper. He whipped off the newspaper and rubbed the bottle down the side of his jumper.

“We must have a drop of the good stuff to honour the occasion,” he declared, “and I haven’t forgotten the young ones either,” he told them, pulling three bottles of red lemonade from a bag behind his back.

“Jack,” Nora squealed with delight, “you think of everything!”

“Glasses, Martha,” Jack ordered, and a surprised Martha rose from the table to bring glasses from the parlour press in the corner and place them in front of Jack. He poured the sparkling lemonade into the tall glasses and placed them in front of Nora, Peter and Davy. When Davy raised a questioning eyebrow at the lemonade, Jack told him, “You’re only a stump of a young fellow yet, lad; you need a few more growing years to handle the hard stuff.”

“Kate,” he asked as he spooned brown sugar into the smaller glasses, “will you go down to the kitchen and bring me up a jug of hot water.”

Kate smiled as she went down to the kitchen, thinking that this was Jack in full flight as she had not seen him for years. Martha’s announcement had rejuvenated him, and she knew that Martha had probably never before encountered this side of Jack. He had always been careful in her presence, but now he was exhilarated with delight that Mossgrove was safe.

When she brought back the hot water he ceremoniously mixed his concoction and handed around the glasses with a flourish. Then he announced: “Let’s drink a toast,” and they all rose to their feet.

“To the Phelans of the past, the Phelans of the present and the Phelans of the future,” Jack announced as they raised their glasses. The adults sipped their brew carefully, because Jack in this frame of mind could have a heavy
hand, but the three younger ones slugged back the lemonade with relish.

“Can I do a toast?” Nora wanted to know.

“You don’t
do
a toast,” Peter told her, “you propose it.”

“Well, whatever you call it, can I do it?” she wanted to know.

“Jack seems to have appointed himself master of ceremonies,” her mother told her.

“Sure, Nora,” Jack told her with enthusiasm, “we’ll drink to whatever you want to propose.”

“To Dada,” she said, raising her glass of lemonade, “’cause I prayed to him not to let Mossgrove be sold and he heard.”

“He sure did,” Jack declared, raising his steaming glass, “and I’ll certainly drink to that and to our other absent friends.”

“Who are our other absent friends?” Nora wanted to know.

“Your grandmother Nellie Phelan and your great-grandfather old Edward Phelan,” Jack told her warmly, “the great people in whose footsteps we are walking today.”

“Do you know something, Jack,” Peter laughed at him, “I’d say that the cure is gone to your head.”

“Not a bit of it, boy,” Jack assured him grandly. “I’m drunk with relief of the occasion that’s in it. This is a great day for Mossgrove, and in years to come when I’m growing daisies down in Kilmeen cemetery, Peter, you remember this day and the joy that is in it. Because a lifetime of living only throws up a few days like this, and when they come they must be savoured and appreciated and recorded on the back pages of the mind, never to be forgotten. This is what living is all about, lad, celebrating the good days, and
the memory of them will keep you going when things get rough. Because if you have good days once there is no reason why they will not come again. The secret is that when they are good you should say that they are good.”

“By God, Jack, that was some speech,” Mark told him appreciatively. “I didn’t think that you had that many words in you.”

“This is what you might call rising to the occasion,” Jack assured him, rubbing his hands together with relish.

“Would it be possible to have our tea now?” Martha asked coolly.

“Certainly, Martha,” Jack told her with a flourish; “pour away, my girl, and we’ll sample some of your splendid baking.”

Martha did not enjoy being termed “my girl”, but her annoyance was lost on Jack who handed around cups of tea as if they were golden goblets.

“Jack, I never saw you in such good humour,” Nora smiled at him.

“Good humour is a great thing,” Jack told her with enthusiasm, “and why wouldn’t we be in good humour and we wining and dining like lords and enjoying your mother’s fine fare.”

“Your cakes are scrumptious, Mom,” Nora said.

“They are superb,” Jack pronounced with vigour, handing plates up and down the table.

As Kate looked at the faces around the table she decided that Jack was right. After all the trauma they had been through it was good to celebrate this occasion. Peter, she had noticed, had not gone to his mother as Nora had done; it would take time for Peter to forgive Martha for what had happened. But she knew that Jack and Davy
would get around him. There was no bitterness in either of them and they would encourage Peter to forget. If Martha had uprooted him out of Mossgrove, she would have had her hands full because he would never have forgiven her. Nora was different. Once the bad days were over Nora would let them go, and now looking at her smiling face Kate was thankful that she had handled Ned’s death so well. She loved this little girl who had so much of Nellie and Ned in her, and she was glad that she would grow up here where they would have wanted. It would be good for her, too, to have Agnes and Mark near by, because they had the gentleness and kindness that Martha lacked.

Martha, on the other hand, had the determination to run Mossgrove and make a good job of it, because Martha was never prepared to be second best. Now that she had no other choice she would be hell-bent on proving that she was smarter and better than any Phelan. That could only be good for Mossgrove. There was no doubt but that now that she was not selling she would sort out the Conways pretty fast. Ned had held her back from being too drastic with them, but now there was no restraint. Matt Conway would meet his match. Kate smiled to realise that Martha was probably as tough as the old man Phelan, and maybe in the circumstances that was no bad thing. She would need to be tough to handle the Conways. It was ironic that they were celebrating the cancellation of the sale with old Molly’s cure. She felt that it would have amused Molly Conway, who had had scant regard for her menfolk.

“Kate, you are away in a world of your own,” Mark smiled down at her.

“Yes, I’m savouring the day, as Jack told us to.”

“That was some speech coming from Jack, wasn’t it? Never thought that he had it in him.”

“I’m so happy for him that Martha changed her mind,” Kate said.

“It’s great for all of you,” Mark smiled, “and I’m delighted for my mother as well. She would have missed them so much. The only problem she has now is me.”

“You’re no problem.”

“Well, it would be nice if I earned a bit of money – not for my own sake, because I don’t give a damn, but it would be nice for Agnes if I was turning over an honest pound. It would make her feel good in the face of Martha’s criticism of me,” he said ruefully.

“It’s about to happen,” Kate told him.

“Oh yea, and pigs will fly,” he laughed.

“No, seriously,” she told him. “I have an announcement to make.”

Kate stood up and clinked her spoon against her cup. “I want to say something,” she announced.