by Henry Green
Kate started to choke, Edith to blush. Miss Burch did not appear to notice.
'I think I'll go lie down for ten minutes,' she informed those present. And Edith got out of Kate's sight by rising to follow her to ask if she would care for a cup of tea.
Outside, at a quarter to three, they both wore raincoats and Charley had his bowler hat. As the little girls raced about behind, Charley bent down, picked up two peacock's feathers which he offered to Edith.
'Whatever should I do with those?' she asked low.
'You wore one the week of the funeral,' he replied.
'Not now,' she said. They walked on with a space between.
'What's happened to all those blessed birds anyway?' he asked in a tired voice.
'It's the rain,' she answered. 'They don't like wet' There was a silence.
'Tell you where they'd be then,' he began again. 'Away in the stable back of Paddy's room.' She made no comment. 'Should we go in that direction?'
'Not now,' she said.
'If you liked I could find you some eggs? I know where they lay.'
She laughed. 'Oh no thanks all the same. That kind's no use,' and crossed her fingers in the raincoat pocket, against this lie perhaps.
'What kind then?' he asked.
'Oh I couldn't say,' she said.
'I get you,' he answered in a doubtful voice. Once more they both fell silent.
Meantime Kate had slipped out to the lampman's where he kept corn for his peacocks. Paddy was awake. He showed no surprise when she entered.
'I wasn't goin' to carry on when nobody else was workin',' she announced.
He sat where he was and grunted.
'Not your baby,' she said, wandering about to inspect this and that. She seemed familiar with the place. It was certainly not the first time she had been alone with him.
'What this old dump needs is a good scrub out,' she said, 'only you're too Irish to give it.'
He spoke then. He spoke in English and quite free although his accent was such you could take a file to it. But she must have understood.
'Not me,' she replied. 'What d'you take me for? You do your own chores for yourself thanks. I don't want none.'
He laughed. His mouth was fringed with great brown teeth. His light eyes shone through the grey hair over them.
'Look at you,' she said coming up slow, swinging her hips. 'Have you got no pride?'
He laughed again but sat quiet. She turned away saying, 'Where did you put it then?' She made a search amongst oddments overlaid with dust upon a thick shelf. He followed with his eyes and did not turn his head. As a result for a full minute one pupil was swivelled almost back of the nose he had on him whilst the other was nearly behind a temple but he grinned the while. Then she turned up a dog's comb of tinned iron. She blew on this to dust it.
Lifting the piece of broken mirror glass off a wall from between four nails which held it at the edges she said,
'Take a load of yourself while I do yer.'
Standing at the back of him she began to comb his head. She worked like a simple woman that rakes a beanfield and jerked his head back with each pull. As the hair on his forehead was lifted it uncovered a line of dirt, a tidemark, along where the laid beans of his hair started grey and black. He tilted the glass he held to watch.
'Heed yerself and the state you're in,' she said. 'Give over watchin' me.'
He muttered something. For once she could not have understood.
'Say that again,' she asked.
He spoke rapid for about thirty seconds after placing the bit of mirror between his knees. He turned to face her.
'Well that's your look out,' she answered when he was done. Kate's arms lay along her purple uniformed sides. He smelled of peat smoke and she of carbolic. She added in a softer voice, 'You want to find one of your Irish women as'll see to you.'
He put out a paw like to sugar cake.
'No you don't,' she cried sharp and dodged back. 'What's more if you can't sit there quiet as gold I'll get me gone. I've got my share to do back in the Castle.'
He muttered. He faced the way he had been, picked up the glass again.
'That's right,' she said, 'though lord knows this is good labour wasted,' and began on his head once more.
Then she started to talk almost as though to herself.
' 'E's out, out in the air for a walk Mr Charley Raunce is, the first time since nobody can remember. Ah but she's deep our Edith, deep as the lake there. "Will I take the little angels out bless their little white hearts, sweetheart come too, along for the stroll." And if you don't believe you've only to risk a peek outside. Takin' 'is death he is. Round by the doves at the back I'll lay they are Paddy, billing an' all the rest. What d'you say to that you Irishman? Or they're over by the water. But what've you been at with your glory since I done it for you last? 'Ere,' she said, 'clear the combings off for yourself,' she said handing the comb back to him, 'I neyer made out I'd free the strakes for you into the bargain.'
Once her hands were disengaged she put these up to reroll her curls but halted before she touched. Then she sniffed at her fingers.
'Christ,' she said, 'what we girls have to put up with.' Then she added, 'You might give us a break and wash it occasionally.'
He said something.
'You got nowhere you mean?' she replied. 'Well I don't wonder they won't let you be free with their sink I must say. You've only to look at you. But what's wrong with a clean bucket? When Charley's little Bert has a mind to 'is boiler the water's O.K.,' she said and took the comb back. This time she began about his right ear. 'I'll give you a roll just 'ere exactly like the Captain. Oh the Captain,' and she laughed.
Paddy's enormous head began to show signs of order with parts of the tangle, which might have been laid by hail, starting to stand once more wildly on its own on his black beanfield of hair after a ground frost.
'But lord,' she remarked, 'whatever would my mother say to you Tarzan?'
'Look,' she announced, 'I'm fed up. You take hold and finish,' she told him handing back that comb.
'I'm fed up with you,' Mrs Welch said to her Albert at this precise moment as she sat him down at the kitchen table. 'So she wouldn't take you eh? Expect me to believe that eh?' She watched the boy with what appeared to be disfavour.
'That's what she said'm.'
'What did she say then?'
'When she come in the nursery I was like you said. I 'ad my coat zipped up and me 'at in me pocket. "No," she said, "not you Albert my little man, you go down in the kitchen," she says an' she give me a bit of toffee out of a bag.'
'Where is it?'
'I've ate it.'
'Is it in your pocket this minute along with your hat?'
'No'm.'
'Let me see if you're tellin' lies.' And Mrs Welch clambered to her feet, leaned right over that table. She felt in his coat.
'Is this it?' she asked bringing the thing out, a toffee in a screw of paper. She gingerly lowered herself back while she held this sweet out at arm's length, resting her bare arm along the table top. He made no reply.
'You wouldn't lie to me would yer?' she asked.
'No'm.'
'Then is this what she give you?'
He kept silent.
'You see what I'm goin' to do with this,' she went on, and unwrapped the sweet. Then she spat on it and threw the toffee into a can of ashes by the range. 'Now listen,' she continued, 'if ever I catch you taking what she offers I'll tan the 'ide right off you d'you h'understand?'
'Yes'm.'
'For why? Because she's a nasty little piece that considers we're not good enough for 'er, and very likely a thief into the bargain. With her precious Miss Moira this and little Miss Evelyn that. Never again no more. Right?'
'Yes'm.'
'And what are you goin' to do with yerself this afternoon of springtime that you can't go h'out with the others? I'll tell you. You're goin' to set to work my lad.'
The boy who had been gazing at the floor suddenly
stared at her sharp.
'Yes,' she said, 'that comes as a bit of a surprise d'ain't it? Never you mind. You got to start some day. You won't always be runnin' around with gentry and their stuck-up maids. Now you see that saucepan, the one which's last on the left?'
He looked reluctant at three burnished rows hanging on the dresser, on nails through the holes in their steel handles.
'That's right,' she went on, 'the last on the left. You'll take that down so help me and you'll make a start scourin'. The young leddy was took faint. Took faint,' she repeated giving a short laugh as Kate had done. 'Yes. One time she was out with Mrs Tennant. "It's the pots and pans," Mrs T. says to me after. "You'll oblige me by casting a look on them Madam," I said. "I can't help it Mrs Welch," she says, "I'm certain there was something in that sole or its sauce." Sauce indeed. But she never listened. So now you're going to make a start scourin' them saucepans. Even if you bring all the tin off and they get copper poison. Get on then.'
The boy got up slow.
'And don't you go break that thread I've 'ad put through the handles,' she cried frantic all of a sudden. 'You'll find where it's tied there by the side. I'm gettin' me chains and a padlock,' she explained grim as grim.
Kate had left the comb stuck at an angle in Paddy's head. The lampman sat where he was on a corn bin while she wandered round again. She came up to that glass division and looked through.
'Can a person eat them eggs?' she asked. He answered excitedly.
'That's all right,' she said. 'No need to get worked up. I only asked didn't I?'
He muttered something.
'Oh all right I know you set great store by the birds,' she replied, 'an' if you took one half the trouble over yourself as you do with their layin' why you'd be a different person altogether,' she explained.
He got up, made after her. 'No,' she said, 'no,' but she did not move as he came grinning. He reached round her middle and drank her in a kiss like a man home after a journey. He pressed her back against the glass that fronted that huge cabinet. Through the opening behind could be seen those peacocks getting up with a sort of chittering as though alarmed. Shesank into him as her knees gave way yet both of them stayed decent.
Out in the demesne Raunce said to Edith,
'I got to sit me down.'
'You got to sit down?' she echoed as he looked dull about him.
'I've come over queer,' he said. Indeed his face was now the colour of the pantry boy Albert's.
'Why you're not goin' to faint right off like I did surely,' she exclaimed and clucked with concern. 'Sit yourself on this stone,' she said, 'it's dry for one thing.'
He sat. He put his new terrible face into his hands. They stayed silent. The two children came up, stood and watched him.
'Run along,' she told them gentle. 'Go find Michael.'
When they were alone Raunce spoke. 'It must be the air,' he said.
She stood awkward at his side as though she could not think what to do. Then she said, 'If we were inside I could fetch you a cup of tea.' She talked soft with concern. He groaned.
'It's me dyspepsia,' he said. 'It's coming away in the air 'as done it.'
'But you do go out,' she replied low, 'I saw you when we were by the doves that dinner time.'
'That was only for a minute,' was his answer. 'But this long stretch...' and he ended his sentence with a groan. By and by however he grew better while she stood helpless at his bowed shoulders. After a time he got up. Then they summoned the little girls, tenderly made their way back to the Castle.
'You should take more care,' she kept on repeating.
It was some days later they sat in the servants' hall talking with dread of the IRA. They were on their own now, with the lady and her daughter still over in England, and the feeling they had was that they stood in worse danger than ever.
Kate asked the lampman if he had heard any rumours. Paddy gabbled an answer. As he did so he did not meet their eyes in this low room of antlered heads along the walls, his back to the sideboard with red swans.
Raunce's neck was tied up in a white silk scarf of Mr Jack's. He seemed to turn his head with difficulty to ask Kate what the Irishman had said.
'He says not to believe all you're told.' 'I don't,' Raunce put in at once. 'And that they're not so busy by half as what they was,' Kate ended.
Edith anxiously regarded her Charley.
'I should hope not indeed,' Miss Burch informed the company. 'Though I will say for Mrs Welch she was dead right when she forbade her girls passing the time of day with those tradesmen. Just in case,' she added.
'And what about their afternoons off?' Mr Raunce enquired.
'What I always insist is that if you can't trust your girls,' Miss Burch replied, 'you might as soon give in your notice and go find yourself another place.' She turned to Edith. 'Now you never speak to none of the natives when you get outside?'
'Oh no Miss Burch,' they both replied, mum about Patrick with his fine set of teeth.
'That's right,' Raunce told them. 'You can't be too careful. There's a war on,' he said.
'Are you in a draught?' Edith asked him tenderly. 'You don't want to take risks.' And Kate looked as though she might start a giggle any minute.
'There is a draught,' Raunce answered grave. 'There's a draught in every corner of this room which is a danger to sit in.'
'Move over to the other side then,' Miss Burch suggested.
'Thank you,' he said, 'but it's the same whichever side you are. I don't know,' he went on, 'but with them away now I feel responsible.'
'And what about the Jerries?' Kate put in suddenly. 'What if they come over tell me that?'
'Kate Armstrong,' Edith cried, 'why I asked you that selfsame question not so long since and you said they were ordinary working folk same as us so wouldn't offer no incivilities.'
'And I'm not saying they would,' Kate answered, 'not that sort and kind. But it might go hard for a young girl in the first week perhaps.'
'Mercy on us you don't want to talk like that,' Miss Burch said. 'You think of nothing but men, there's the trouble. Though if it did happen it would naturally be the same for the older women. They're famished like a lion out in the desert them fighting men,' she announced.
'For land's sake,' Edith began but Paddy started to mouth something. It was so seldom he spoke at meals that all listened.
'What's he say?' Raunce asked when the lampman was done.
'He reckons the I R.A. would see to the Jerries,' Kate translated.
'Holy smoke but he'll be getting me annoyed in a minute. First he says there aren't none then 'e pretends they can sort out a panzer division. What with? Bows and arrows?'
Paddy muttered a bit.
'He says,' and Kate gave a laugh, 'they got more'n pikes like those Home Guard over at home.'
'If you can snigger at that you would laugh over anything my gel,' Raunce announced with signs of temper. 'Why you've only to go down in Kinalty and see yourself. Every other house burned right out. Once they got started they'd be so occupied fightin' each other they'd never notice Jerry was in the hamlet even.'
Paddy gave a great braying laugh.
'Laugh?' Raunce shouted and sprang up. All except for Miss Burch wilted and his lad's jaw dropped. 'You would would you?' he went on but the lampman had returned to wooden silence and Raunce subsided back into his seat again. 'Well,' he went on, 'if it should ever come to it there's guns and ammo in the gunroom.'
Edith gave a cry and Kate looked serious. But Miss Burch displayed impatience.
'Whatever's come over you?' she asked. 'You're never thinking you could knock down one of the Mark something tanks as you would a rabbit with one of those shot guns they've got locked up here,' she said.
'What I had in mind was a cartridge each for you ladies,' he replied in a low voice. Utterly serious he was.
'Would you spare one for Mrs Welch?' Miss Burch enquired tart and Kate let out a yell of laughter. Edith laughed also and after a minute Raunce hims
elf joined in shamefaced. Paddy stayed impassive.
'You want to go delicate you know,' Miss Burch went on, 'you've no game licence.'
'You mean you wouldn't hesitate...?' Edith began to ask him seriously but Charley interrupted her.
'I'd like to see 'em up in Dublin issue a permit over Mrs Welch as they do with the salmon trout,' he said to Miss Burch. At this they all laughed once more when Kate broke in with,
'Speakin' for myself I'd rather have the Jerry.'
'Under 'er bed,' Raunce made comment and even Miss Burch tee-hee'd wholehearted.
'There's the telephone,' Raunce announced. Bert got up to answer it away in the pantry.
Miss Burch fixed a stern eye on Kate so much as to say a minute or so ago just now you were about to be actually coarse.
'Well I don't aim to be shot dead. On no account I don't,' the girl explained.
'There's worse things than death my girl,' Miss Burch repeated. 'As anyone can tell you who remembers the last war.'
'I saw in the papers they behave themselves most correct towards the French people,' Edith said, still looking at Charley.
'What can you believe in these Irish rags?' Raunce asked.
'Well, there's one thing,' Miss Burch told him, 'they're neutral enough, they print what both sides say against one another.'
'Ah,' said Raunce, 'that's nothing but propaganda these days. It's human nature you've got to keep count of. Why it stands to reason with an invadin' army...' he was going on as Edith watched him open eyed when Albert came back.
'It was a wire for you,' he said to Raunce.
'Where is it then?' this man asked.
'Well there ain't no telegram,' was the answer he got. 'They read it out over the phone.'
' 'Ow many times have I told you never to take nothin' over that instrument without you write it down,' Raunce demanded in rising tones. 'Why I remember once at a place I was in, that very thing occasioned the death of a certain Mrs Harris. There you are. Killed her it did as if she had been blown in smithereens with a shotgun.'