Then She Fled Me

by Sara Seale

“I told you at the time that sentence was a mistake, but you insisted. You’ve never been inside one of the places that advertise every home comfort. He probably has.”

  Sarah’s green eyes were very bright.

  “There’s the English for you!” she exclaimed. “Stretch out the hand of friendship and they slap you on the snout! Well, my fine gentleman, whether you’re old, sick or only dotty, you won’t do that twice to the hospitality of Dun Rury. I’ll send him a telegram this instant and tell him he can stop his own side of the water and be damned to him!”

  Laughing, Joe caught her by the shoulder.

  “He’s only trying to make his own position clear. He probably thinks you’re one of these arch spinsters all false teeth and false sentimentality. Look, here’s the bus, I shall have to go. Be sensible, Sarah, give him a trial. He’s a good paying proposition and you’ll hardly ever see him.”

  “Indeed, I’ll keep out of his way, or my Irish paddy will get the better of me.”

  “And A. G. Flint, too, I wouldn’t mind betting! Now be a good girl, Sarah, and calm down. If he proves impossible, Dad and I will come and turf him out. I must run—goodbye.”

  He left her there standing in the rain. She stood waving angrily after the departing bus, then, with a more sober vision of Mr. Flint’s five guineas a week plus extras, turned and went slowly back to the boat.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Miss Dearlove was just as they had imagined her, even to the jingling charm bracelets and floating scarves. Sarah drove into Knockferry to meet the afternoon train, and she had no difficulty in picking out the new English arrival from the handful of passengers, mostly farmers and returning: visitors to Dublin. Miss Dearlove stood peering rather helplessly about her, coats and scarves trailing untidily, from her arms, three suitcases of assorted sizes piled on the platform beside her.

  She looked relieved at being addressed, but eyed Sarah a little doubtfully.

  “And who are you, my dear?” she enquired, looking past Sarah’s shoulder as if she hoped and expected to find someone more responsible to escort her on the last stage of her journey.

  “I’m Sarah Riordan. The others were busy and couldn’t come, and Danny’s started school again. Anyway, I’m the only one who can drive the car,” said Sarah, picking up a suitcase.

  “I see. You are Miss Riordan’s niece, perhaps?”

  “No. I mean Aunt Em’s name is O’Neill. She’s our mother’s sister.”

  “I see,” said Miss Dearlove again, but she sounded confused. “But the Miss Riordan who wrote to me...”

  “Oh, that was me,” said Sarah. “Joe drafted the letters; but I put in the bit about home comforts. Did you like that? Our other lodger, I mean guest, took great exception.”

  “Charming ... a charming letter ... but surely, my dear child, you cannot be running a guest house at your age?”

  “I’m eighteen. Kathy’s the eldest, but you see the house is mine, so I’m the landlady.”

  As the old Morris began to plunge along the south road, Miss Dearlove shut her eyes and began to wish herself back in the comparative safety of Streatham where she lived. Sarah drove a car as she rode a horse, exhorting it up hills with clickings of the tongue and encouraging cries, reining it in abruptly at unexpected obstacles, and roaring round the worst bends in bottom gear.

  “Is this the only road?” Miss Dearlove asked a little faintly.

  “The north road’s much longer as you have to go right round the lough,” shouted Sarah, changing gear with violence. “Don’t be afraid, Miss Dearlove, it’s quite safe when you know it—just bumpy.”

  What an odd little girl, Miss Dearlove thought, observing Sarah with an interest that was slightly tinged with foreboding. It was quite absurd, of course, to suppose that she was really the person to whom she would pay one’s weekly bill and make such complaints and requests that were necessary, hut the whole family sounded a little confused. Miss Dearlove clung resolutely to the fact that there did appear to be an aunt, otherwise she might have been forced to the conclusion that she had fallen among a pack of irresponsible children. But she was nothing if not tenacious. By the time they had reached Dun Rury she had managed to sort out the relationships and past history of the Riordans.

  “You’re very isolated,” she remarked, as Sarah pointed out the house to her. “I hadn’t realized—”

  “Don’t let that put you off,” said Sarah cheerfully. “I go into Knockferry once a week, and you can always row across the lough to the north shore and catch the bus.”

  Miss Dearlove suppressed a shudder. That dreadful road! And this child spoke of rowing across the lough as though it were as simple as hailing a taxi.

  Sarah brought the car to a standstill on the wide neglected sweep of the drive and Kathy came running out of the house. Miss Dearlove blinked. She had not been prepared for Kathy. In the failing light of late afternoon, with mist already rising from the lough, the girl looked like some impossibly beautiful heroine of the romances she had read in her youth. With Kathy opening the car door and bidding her welcome in her gentle voice while her blue eyes smiled a shy greeting, the spell of the country fell upon her.

  “Now I know I’m in Ireland,” she said archly. “You must be straight out of the ‘Land of Heart’s Desire.’ ‘The wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart...’ ”

  “ ‘... and the lonely of heart is withered away.’ ” Kathy, who was well acquainted with W. B. Yeats, was pleased. It was seldom anyone gave her the opportunity of capping a quotation.

  “You are fond of poetry?” exclaimed Miss Dearlove, delighted. “But of course you are with that dreamer’s face. You and I, my dear, are going to be great friends.”

  It was an idea she clung to resolutely as the days passed. She followed Kathy about, read poetry with her and said she was going to describe her exactly in one of her wee tales for little people. To be fair, Kathy did not discourage her. She enjoyed Miss Dearlove’s adulation with an innocent pleasure which made Sarah smile, and even when later their guest’s gushing archness began to pall, she was too gentle to snub.

  But the rest of the family found Miss Dearlove something of a trial. She was always with them, asking questions, taking notes, begging to be allowed to help. “You mustn’t treat me as a guest,” was her frequent cry. “I don’t want to cause the teeniest bit of extra trouble. Just think of me as one of yourselves.” She even invaded the kitchen and talked to Nonie with what she fondly imagined to be an Irish brogue, until Nonie observed with perfect politeness but some surprise:

  “I’m very sorry, miss, but I’m not after understanding a word you’re saying.”

  The evenings were the worst part of the day, when they were all gathered together in the snug and Miss Dearlove chattered brightly about her work, her flat in Streatham and her friend Miss Pringle, who had a job as librarian. They became very tired of Miss Pringle. She was quoted on every possible occasion and Miss Dearlove seemed to have a great respect for her opinions.

  “She thought of joining me on this little holiday, you know, but it wouldn’t have done,” she told them. “Dear Edith is the teeniest bit set in her ways—she’s older than I, you know—and—well, she’s very British, if you know what I mean.”

  “Punctual for meals and plenty of hot water,” said Sarah, grinning. “I’m afraid our home comforts aren’t like that.”

  “Oh, but my dear little Sarah, don’t think for one moment ... Of course, if one could know when the bath would be hot ... or if one knew lunch would be at two o’clock or even three But, there, it’s so typical, isn’t it?”

  “Typical of what?”

  “The delightful Irish. Do you know”—Miss Dearlove looked roguish—“I quite expected there would be pigs in the kitchen.”

  “Did you, Miss Dearlove?” said Sarah blankly. “I hope you weren’t disappointed.”

  “She’s so determined to make the best of us,” she complained to her aunt. “Aunt Em, I think sh
e’s terrible.”

  “Not terrible, dear,” her aunt said tolerantly. “Misguided in some ways, perhaps.” She began to look indignant despite her charitable intentions. “I must say I wish she would stop alluding to us as old maiden ladies. I am not old, I’m not much more than fifty, and she won’t see that again, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Sarah hugged her.

  “Darling Aunt Em. How nice to know you can be catty, too. Well, the Flint will be with us any day now, and then we’ll have two of them. Oh dear, I sometimes think this wasn’t a very good idea of mine, after all. Dun Rury isn’t at all the same.”

  There had been another brief letter from A. G. Flint, informing Sarah that he hoped to get away by the end of the week and would wire them as soon as he was certain of his plans. Would Sarah please arrange suitable transport from Knockferry.

  “What does he mean by suitable?” demanded Sarah, her rage returning. “Does he imagine we all drive about in jaunting cars?”

  “I haven’t seen one of those since I was a girl,” Aunt Em said reminiscently. “Although I believe there are still a few in Dublin kept especially for the English tourists. I think he only means he wants to be met, dear.”

  “Well, why can’t he say so in an ordinary civil fashion? Suitable transport indeed! The more I hear of that man the more I dislike the sound of him.”

  It had rained for most of the week, but on Friday the sun shone and Sarah suggested taking a picnic to Cuchulain’s Keep for the benefit of Miss Dearlove who desired to visit all the spots with legends attached to them. They had already done St. Patrick’s Well and the Hill of the Sidhe’ and Hooley’s Cave, which was rather smelly and full of the skeletons of sheep that had died in the snow, but Cuchulain’s Keep was farther afield and involved taking the donkey and cart so that they could take it in turns to ride. Aunt Em proposed to visit old Mrs. Donovan whose grandfather was reputed to have been carried off for a month and a day by the Sidhe, and they were to pick her up on the way home so that Miss Dearlove should hear the story from the old woman’s own lips.

  Miss Dearlove was excited at the prospect. She had been a little disappointed in the Riordans’ lack of interest in fairies, and although they were always ready with information about the old gods and heroes of Ireland, gods and heroes were not what she wanted for her wee tales. She insisted on having her photograph taken riding in the donkey cart to send to her friend Miss Pringle. “So typical, my dear,” and set off with a pile of notebooks and pencils on a determined search for local color.

  It took them over two hours to reach Cuchulain’s Keep, for in the stony boreens they all had to walk, and give the cart a helping push over the roughest places. At the end of the last boreen they had to leave the donkey and cart and climb the steep mountain path which led to the old ruined tower a hundred feet or so above them. Sarah unharnessed the donkey and tethered it on a rough patch of grass, and she and Danny, who was playing truant from school, took the lunch baskets and rugs between them while Kathy carried Miss Dearlove’s notebooks.

  “You get a lovely view from here,” Sarah said when they had reached the tower. “You can see right round the lough. Look, there’s the bridge where the south road joins the north, and there’s the moor road which goes to Kibeen where they have the horse fair. You can see Dun Rury— doesn’t it look small from here? That patch of bright green at the far end of the lough is the bog where Mick-the-Weaver lost his black sow.”

  Miss Dearlove, panting and uncomfortably hot with all her scarves, agreed bravely that the view was worth the climb, but she looked dubiously at the seating facilities afforded by the tower which was little more than a circular broken wall, and glanced apprehensively at the sky. There was clearly a rainstorm coming up. They made her comfortable with rugs and mackintoshes in a sheltered corner of the tower, and perched themselves carelessly on the wall. There seemed little to do now they had got there except have lunch, but Miss Dearlove had to confess it was pleasant to eat wings of chicken in one’s fingers and be told there was duck when that was finished.

  “Well, now,” Miss Dearlove said brightly when they had finished eating, “tell me how this came to be called Cuchulain’s Keep.”

  They told her the story of Cuchulain and his courting of Emer, and the war for the Brown Bull of Cuailgne.

  “It’s said that he used to watch here from this tower waiting for the signal from Slieve Rury to tell him his enemies were sighted, but I don’t think the battle was so far west,” Sarah said without turning her eyes from Slieve Rury, the distant mountain which rose, with a lovely spiral grace beyond the lough. “There was no north road, only the south, just as you see it now.”

  Miss Dearlove blinked. It was wild and lonely up here on the mountain-side, and the Hound of Ulster and his fierce deeds were not the pleasant company that elves and leprechauns would be.

  “Well, now,” she said, rallying. “You see you do know some folk-lore after all.”

  “Is that folk-lore?” enquired Danny with surprise. “I thought it was history.”

  “Oh, my dear little boy!” She laughed. “Those things aren’t true.”

  He looked at her with pity, but said nothing, and Kathy, unable to resist such an obvious cue, murmured gently:

  “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...’ ”

  Miss Dearlove pounced happily. “ ‘... Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ ” she said smugly. “Yes, I know, Kathy. One should not be hasty. After all—”

  “The ass has broke loose,” suddenly shouted Sarah, employing, as she did in moments of agitation, Nolan’s more picturesque phraseology. “Come on, all of you! If he feels his freedom he’ll be away to his stable, and we with miles to walk home.”

  They went slipping and sliding down the mountain path, and Miss Dearlove stood up to watch them, thinking that this, too, was typical. Miss Pringle would not be sympathetic, but she would be amused. The Riordans were undoubtedly quaint, She could hear their voices floating up to her, soft, blandishing, Irish voices, coaxing the donkey. “Ah, come on, now ...” “Woa, Cosgrave, will you wait awhile ...” “Mind yourself, Kathy, he’s quick with his heels ... Danny, head him off!”

  They dodged and doubled, Sarah leaping over stones and gullies with a grace that Kathy surprisingly lacked. It began to rain. Miss Dearlove struggled into her mackintosh and. tied her head up in a scarf, and thought of the Miss Kellys and their guest house on the other side of the lough. From all accounts they did not indulge in such antics. With a shout, Sarah had the donkey by the tail, hopping this side and that to avoid his kicking heels, and Danny ran to his head with a halter.

  “Och, you sly, murdering divil!” cried Sarah, wrath taking the place of guile, and she slapped the donkey hard on the rump with the flat of her hand.

  They harnessed him to the cart, then started up the mountainside to collect Miss Dearlove and the lunch baskets. Miss Dearlove found the journey back unpleasant. It was a long time before she could ride in the cart owing to the nature of the boreens, and when she was able to perch uncomfortably on the hard, narrow seat, her wet scarves dripped down the back of her neck. Kathy beside her seemed lost in a dream, her eyes blank and incredibly blue, her hair curling into wet ringlets. Every so often she changed places with Danny, but Sarah seemed tireless. She swung along beside the donkey, a mackintosh slung carelessly round her shoulders barely keeping her dry, and sometimes she whistled, and sometimes she remarked incomprehensively, but with perfect sincerity: “Isn’t it a lovely day?”

  Miss Dearlove was tired and cold by the time they reached Mrs. Donovan’s cottage. She felt, rather crossly, that she could not possibly care how Mrs. Donovan’s grandfather was carried off by the Sidhe, but the old woman smoking a clay pipe welcomed them with the flattering extravagance of her race, and Aunt Em was already there, sipping strong black tea by the turf fire. Sarah spread her mackintosh over the donkey’s back, and Miss Dearlove smiled and stepped graciously inside.

  This was the real
thing, she thought, gathering together her flagging spirits; the tiny two-roomed cottage—cabins, weren’t they called?—with a cow looking over the partition, the clay pipe, and the spinning wheel in the corner. They spent, over an hour with Mrs. Donovan, drinking tea and listening to her stories. Miss Dearlove made copious notes, but it was very dark, and she doubted if she would be able to read them later. Still, it was all being stored up in her mind for her next wee tale for little people. She thought she would make Mrs. Donovan a witch, and Kathy and possibly Danny would be the lost children—not too like Hansel and Gretel, of course—and a leprechaun, mischievous and cute, living in the teapot on the mantelshelf.

  Miss Dearlove noticed a sudden coldness in the old woman’s manner as they made their farewells, and wondered if she could have offended in any way. Aunt Em, already in the cart, was being showered with blessings for her gifts of tea and tobacco, and, slightly at a loss, Miss Dearlove followed her, graciously bowing her thanks for hospitality. They set off through the rain which was turning to fine mist, and Miss Dearlove said:

  “A delightful experience. That is just the sort of copy I have been looking for. Do you think, dear Miss Emma, the old lady objected to a stranger? I thought she seemed somewhat malevolent when we went.”

  “That’s because you didn’t give her any money,” said Sarah.

  “Oh!” Miss Dearlove felt annoyed, both with herself for appearing mean, and with Mrs. Donovan for expecting payment.

  “I suppose they’re all alike,” she remarked rather acidly. “Commercialized like the rest of the world. No doubt they make up their stories especially for the tourist.”

  Sarah pushed the wet fringe out of her eyes, and looked up at her with a grin.

  “And if she did, Wasn’t it worth it as entertainment?” she said softly. “Get along with you, Cosgrave, we’ll never be home.”

  Miss Dearlove was offended. For the second time that day she thought of the Miss Kellys and reflected that it was perhaps a pity she had not heard of them before the Riordans.