by Ann Bridge
“How do you know all this? And why do I have to believe it’s true?” she asked.
“You asked me, after I’d met Mr. O’Rahilly here, if we couldn’t go on being friends” Julia said slowly. “I said we would. And it’s because I want to be your friend that I’ve come over today to tell you this. The way the nuns were swindled over the dry-rot is all over the country—Helen O’Hara’s hire-car man told her about it coming back from that funeral we went to at Kilmichan. Only you’re a stranger, and would be the last person in Mayo to hear it! And”—she paused—“I only heard yesterday who had perpetrated the swindle” she went on. “But the very day we met I saw you saying goodbye to Mr. Moran at Westland Row, and you seemed on very affectionate terms. What would you expect a friend to do, in such circumstances? Keep quiet?”
Sally Martin began to cry again. Presently—“Yes, I guess you had to tell me to put me straight about it” she said. Suddenly—“Oh mercy! The coffee!” she exclaimed, and ran out to the kitchen, whence she returned with two steaming cups. Stirring hers—“But you don’t think Billy necessarily knew anything about that part?” she asked.
“I’ve no means of knowing, one way or the other” Julia said. “But I don’t see how he could know unless Moran told him, and I should hardly expect even Peter Moran to broadcast something so discreditable about himself.”
“You still haven’t told me how you know” Sally Martin said.
“No, and I’m not going to! But it’s not much good being friends if you don’t believe what I say” Julia said roundly.
“Oh, I will! I’m sorry—it’s all so awful—I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Don’t start crying again! Look, Sally, I know all this is very horrid for you” Julia said, “but the only thing to do is to face the facts.”
“Will it matter if I talk to Billy about it?”
“No, of course not. He’ll be the next last person in Mayo, after you, to hear the talk!” Julia said, smiling. She got up. “I must be off.” She kissed her friend. “Keep your heart up. Bless you.”
Chapter 11
As julia drove back towards The Sound she began to wonder if she had been very wise to tell Mrs. Martin that she might talk to Mr. O’Rahilly about Moran’s behaviour. Sally would inevitably mention that she had learned this unpalatable news from her, Julia; and this, almost equally inevitably, would make him guess that Gerald O’Brien was the source of Julia’s information. She stopped at The Sound and rang up the shack from the call-box there; Sally was in, and she asked her not to mention the business to Billy “for the present”—as before, she used no names.
“Well, when can I?”
“When I say you can—not before.”
“But I must tell Bi——.”
“No names!” Julia shut her up. “Have some sense! I’ll let you know as soon as ever I can, when you can talk to him. Bye.” She cut off.
Back in Rostrunk, she got off a letter to Mrs. Hathaway, giving the news of her engagement and imminent marriage, by the afternoon post; the old lady was apt to be fussed by long-distance calls about anything important. Not so the Reeders, and after 6 P.M. she put in a personal call to Edina Reeder, giving the same tidings, and asking her good offices in the matter of the Macdonald’s chapel and getting the banns posted. Edina expressed herself as delighted—“He’s the nicest person—” and promised to set everything in train. When Julia had ascertained the vast price of the call, and took the money in to Lady Helen in the library, the General, more suo, scolded her for her extravagance.
“What on earth did you want to telephone for, and spend all that money? Why wouldn’t a letter do?”
“Save time—we want to get married quickly, Michael. And give the Reeders as much notice as possible. Glentoran’s awfully out of the way, and to get things up by steamer from Glasgow takes ages—it only goes once a month.”
“What on earth would they have to get up from Glasgow?” O’Hara wanted to know.
“Darling, Julia is their cousin—they’ll want to give her the nicest wedding they can. A proper cake, and flowers for the chapel, and extra eats—all sorts of things” Lady Helen said pacifically.
“Waste of money” was the General’s sympathetic comment.
After dinner the telephone rang—O’Hara answered it. “Who’s that? Speak up, I can’t hear you. Father who? Oh yes, at Lettersall. Bad news?—well, cough it up, man. Oh, good God! When? Who found her? Oh, old Annie. What of? I see. Stupid creature! Well, I’ll be over in the morning first thing of course. O’Brien?—wait, I’ll ask Mrs. Jamieson; she’ll know.” He put his hand over the mouth-piece. “Julia, when does O’Brien get back from Dublin? You don’t know? Well, where can he be reached in Dublin? You don’t know that either!” He spoke into the telephone again. “Sorry, Father, she doesn’t know anything! His office should know where he can be reached, but that won’t be open till tomorrow, of course. So sorry. Thanks for letting us know.”
He put down the receiver. “Poor old Mary’s gone” he said, coming back to the fire with a look of stricken astonishment on his face. “Some time last night—that old servant found her when she came in this morning, but of course she was too stupid to tell anyone, or get the Doctor—she just pulled down the blinds and left it at that! The Father only heard when the postman got back to Lettersall this afternoon—he did give him a ring—he saw the blinds down and asked Annie. Of course the post doesn’t get to Mary’s till after midday.” He sat down, rather heavily. “Poor Mary, all alone! I wish I’d been there.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve a good mind to go over tonight—there’s another couple of hours of daylight, or nearly.”
“Oh, please don’t, dearest” Lady Helen said. “You’ll be much more useful if you get a good quiet night here first. We’ll have breakfast very early, and you can get off in good time, and pick the priest up on the way, after he’s said early Mass.”
“What do I want the priest for?”
“Oh, he’ll get much more out of Annie than anyone else will. Do you know who poor Mary’s Doctor was?”
“There’s no Doctor at Lettersall, so I suppose it was Dr. Fergus. I’ll give him a ring.”
But Dr. Fergus was out, and his household had no idea when he would be in again. So finally the General accepted, reluctantly, his wife’s suggestion that he should go to bed and get an early night, since he was to make such an early start next day.
Lady Helen was a thoroughly practical person, and when her husband, with Julia as usual as co-driver, were setting off she put a picnic-hamper in the car. “You’ve no idea when you’ll get back, and I don’t suppose Annie has thought to prepare any food, even supposing she’s got any in the house” she said in reply to O’Hara’s customary protests. Julia had taken upon herself, at Lady Helen’s suggestion, to ring up Father O’Donnell the previous night to say that they would call for him—“Poor man, he oughtn’t to go peddling all the way over to Mary’s again” Helen O’Hara said. So he was waiting on the Presbytery steps, a bunch of white roses in his hand, when they drew up.
“This is most good of you, General,” he said, getting in. “I’m hoping Dr. Fergus will get over this morning—of course I telephoned to him as soon as I heard, but he had three confinements yesterday afternoon and evening, one a very difficult one, and he couldn’t come. It was nearly midnight when he got home, and got the message I had left. He telephoned to me then—but I told him to leave it till the morning.”
Indeed when they got to the cottage the Doctor’s car was already drawn up in the little drive. Old Annie ushered them into the sitting-room, but there was no sign of the doctor. “He’s within in the bedroom, with the corp” Annie said, in reply to O’Hara’s brusque enquiry. “Oh, the Lord have mercy on us!” She burst into noisy weeping, and retired to her kitchen.
“I should leave him for a little while, General” Father O’Donnell said, as O’Hara moved towards the door. “We may embarrass him if he’s still making an examination.” Reluctantly, O’Hara
sat down and indeed in a couple of minutes Dr. Fergus came in, wiping his hands on a towel.
“Yes, it was her heart—she’s had a heart condition for some time” he said. “I should say it was very sudden; I don’t imagine Lady Browne knew what was happening, or suffered at all. Miss Kelly found her sitting in her chair, looking perfectly peaceful, with her eyes closed—she may even have died in her sleep. I shall be quite happy to sign a death certificate, so that the funeral can be arranged at once. Death probably took place at least thirty-six hours ago. I presume her lawyer will see to the funeral.”
“O’Brien’s away in Dublin, and no one knows when he’ll be back” the General said discontentedly.
“Surely Terence White can arrange that” Julia put in. She was getting rather tired of these complaints about Gerald’s absence. “After all, he is her grandson, and he’s a lawyer too.”
“Oh—ah—I’d forgotten young White” Dr. Fergus said. “He’ll know where to get hold of the daughter, too; they’re abroad somewhere, aren’t they?”
“Africa” from Julia.
“Then they can’t very well get back in time. Well, I’ll just sign that certificate and be getting along—I have my hands rather full with the rising generation at the moment” the doctor said cheerfully, seating himself at the desk.
“That is an excellent thought of yours” Father O’Donnell said to Julia. “Do you know where young Mr. White can be got hold of?”
“Yes, he works in Walshe & Walshe’s office in Martinstown—we could look in and tell him on the way back, after we’ve dropped you” Julia said.
“There!” Dr. Fergus said, getting up. “Who do I give this to?”—brandishing the death certificate.
“Mr. White had better have it, if you’re going to see him” the priest said. “Doctor, are you by any chance going to look up your patients in Lettersall, as you’re so near?”
“Yes, I might as well. Can I give you a lift?”
“I should be most grateful—and that will save you an extra journey, and delay,” the priest said to O’Hara. “And get the news more quickly to Mr. White.” He handed over the white roses, and the death certificate, and he and the doctor left together.
When they had gone Julia went out to the kitchen and asked Annie Kelly to take them to see Lady Browne. The old servant led them through into a room at the back of the house, looking out onto the lough; evidently the late owner’s bedroom, for a dressing-table with a big swing mirror stood at the further end, next to a tall wardrobe. But it had been beautifully arranged; all the toilet things had been removed from the dressing-table, and the furniture pushed together, leaving a clear space round the bed, on which, on a brilliant paisley shawl, all that was mortal of Mary Browne lay, calm and composed, her hands folded on her breast, holding a small plain wooden cross; candles in silver candle-sticks burned at the four corners of the bed, and vases of flowers stood on the mantel-piece and the empty dressing-table. Julia felt pretty sure that this was mainly the priest’s handiwork—a faint smell of incense hung on the air. She dropped to her knees and said a prayer, as Lady Helen had done beside Timmie’s open coffin; rather to her surprise the General knelt down too—Annie Kelly crossed herself, and stood fingering her rosary. When they got up O’Hara stood looking round him for a moment.
“Well, it’s all very nice” he said. “That priest’s a decent chap.” He laid Father O’Donnell’s bunch of white roses gently beside the calm face on the pillow. “Now we’d better find young What’s-his-name as soon as we can” he said, and left the room; Julia, with a word of thanks to Annie, followed.
In the Mall at Martinstown Julia ran in to Walshe & Walshe’s office; it was lunch-time, and clerks were pouring out—she could see no sign of old Raftery, and hurried up to the room where she had found Terence last time—he was there, alone, putting his papers together.
“Oh, thank goodness!” she said and dropped into a chair, panting a little.
“Hullo! What goes on?” the young man asked, in surprise.
“Lady Browne is dead” Julia blurted out. “We’ve just come from there.”
“No! When?” Terence asked, also sitting down.
“Day before yesterday—no, night before last, so far as anyone knows.”
“What of? What happened?” He looked very disturbed.
“Dr. Fergus says it was her heart, and that very likely she died in her sleep.” Julia went on to relate the whole story, as they had heard it from the priest.
“I can’t think why we never thought to ring you up last night, but anyhow by the time we heard the office would have been shut, and I don’t know your home number.”
“I haven’t got one—there’s no telephone at my digs. But Doctor Fergus is sure she didn’t suffer?” he asked, with an anxiety which touched and pleased Julia.
“I don’t think she can have. Father O’Donnell saw her as Annie found her, sitting in her chair with her eyes shut, looking absolutely peaceful, as if she had just dozed off.”
“She oughtn’t to be left sitting in a chair” Terence said, looking worried.
“She hasn’t been. She’s on the bed in her room, all arranged beautifully, with a cross in her hands, and flowers, and candles burning—I bet you the Father did all that. But look, can you see to the funeral and everything? Here’s the death-certificate” Julia said, handing it to him. “Dr. Fergus signed it, so that there need be no delay.”
“Yes, of course. I must cable my parents before I do anything else—it will upset my Mother terribly, especially if she can’t get home in time. Perhaps if they flew …”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Let us know when the funeral is, and if there’s anything we can do. Just now I want to get Michael home—it’s been a goodish shock to him.”
“Yes, of course. I believe he really was rather attached to her, and I know she counted on him tremendously. Goodbye”—as Julia got up. “Thank you for coming to let me know.”
“Goodbye. So sorry” Julia said, and hastened downstairs.
As they drove away, “When do we eat?” O’Hara asked Julia. “It’s after half-past one, and I’m getting peckish. Where’s that hamper of Helen’s?”
“In the back. Why don’t we go into the park and find a quiet place?”
“Good idea.” So they drove through Lord Oldport’s big black-and-gold wrought-iron gates, and pulled up under a group of trees, which commanded a view of a small lake with water fowl on it, and there partook of Lady Helen’s excellent picnic lunch.
The funeral was two days later. In Martinstown, as in many other places in the West, where people of differing faiths live and work harmoniously together, Catholics and Protestants share the same graveyard; the Catholics are in the majority of course, but a good third, if not more, of the large burial-ground is allocated to the graves of Protestants— in smaller places, with less spacious graveyards, the last resting-places of both denominations are mixed up indiscriminately. The funeral service took place in the Protestant Church; it was sparsely attended, the congregation consisting mainly of the O’Haras and the Fitzgeralds, and of course Terence White; but Julia was touched and pleased to see the tall figure of Father O’Donnell, in a plain dark suit, among the little group that seemed so sparse in the large ugly building. Sally Martin was there too, escorted by Billy O’Rahilly—“She won’t know, so she won’t mind, and he wanted to come” Sally whispered to Julia. Lord Oldport had taken the trouble to come, which greatly pleased the General.
“No, Sir, my Mother is ill, and my Father didn’t like to leave her” Julia overheard Terence explaining to Lord Old-port, in reply to courteous condolences and enquiries as they left the graveside.
“I shall write to him, if you will send me his address.”
“Of course, Sir—he will like that” Terence said, warmly.
Gerald O’Brien only got back three days later. He rang up General O’Hara to express his regret at Lady Browne’s death, and at not having been able to get to the funeral.
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“Ah well, we thought it a bit odd, I must say” the General said bluntly. “What have you done about Moran?” he asked then.
“He’s in New York—I saw him off from Shannon yesterday.”
These tidings pleased O’Hara so much that he promptly invited O’Brien to lunch the following day, and he and Julia listened with interest, over drinks in the library, to Gerald’s account of the business—Lady Helen, as so often before a meal, was still getting her hands clean after gardening.
“No, he wouldn’t go for me—I had to tell his firm about it; that’s why it all took so long” Gerald said. “He is an unpleasant customer, I must say.”
“What did his firm say?”
“Oh, they were appalled, of course. I don’t know what means they used—I gather they had to threaten him with the police, practically—but in the end he signed a document making the £3,000 over to Richard Fitzgerald, and handed back the agreement to sell that he’d twisted out of the poor old lady. That was before we heard she was dead. Then there was no end of cabling and even telephoning to the branch of their firm in New York, and they agreed to give him a berth for six months on trial, and to keep an eye on him. It was all about as disagreeable as anything could be” O’Brien said with an expression of disgust. “And even when they had booked the flight, they didn’t trust him actually to go—so I agreed to drive him down and put him on the plane.”
“Why was the £3,000 to be made over to Fitzgerald?” the General asked.
“He happened to be in Dublin, and he knew all about it already, of course—he took the notes back to Lady Browne at one point, you remember, when she wanted them. No, that’s wrong; it was when he went to her to sign those letters. But with him there it was easy to settle it all on the spot. He will pay it to the nuns at Roskeen, or wherever they are, poor dears. All that is rather complicated; it has to be done through the Mother House of the Order, and that’s in Belgium. But we’ll get round that somehow.”
“And what architect will see to putting the new roof on White Place?” O’Hara asked.