16
Sterrin was amazed to see how tall Young Thomas had grown while she was away in Dublin. And it wasn’t so much his height; something about his face! He no longer looked as though he belonged with the garçonnerie, the little turf and water carriers and all the other juvenile odd-jobbers of the kitchen. He had a grown-up expression, sort of proud looking; almost like Papa’s. It gave her a feeling she was too young to recognise as dismay lest he might withdraw that protective companionability for which she had been so homesick in Dublin.
But when she sought him out a few minutes after her homecoming, his face lit up. He had been dreading the change that the high living in Dublin might have made in her. As the carriage drove up he had glimpsed her in a big flowered hat and new fashionable clothes, looking proud and unsmiling like the Honourable Miss Athele O’Carroll of Strague Castle who wouldn’t dream of speaking to a knife boy except to give an order. But Sterrin was merely cramped from the journey and aching from the pressure of the hat ribbons tied under her chin.
‘Did you like the book I sent you?’ she demanded.
‘I read it three times,’ he told her. ‘I’ll read it again for you.’
But she knew all about the story. Ignatius, the Misses O’Carrolls’ footman had told it to her three times. ‘Ignatius saw the ghost and met the gentleman who wrote the story.’
‘Met Sir Walter Scott?’
‘Yes, he visited Tyrone House long ago when Ignatius worked there and he asked him all about the ghost that haunts it.’
‘Sapristi! Fancy meeting the gentleman who wrote all those marvellous books!’
‘What does “Sapristi” mean?’
‘Oh, it is said in books. It is more dashing than “Egad” and “By Jove”.’
Sterrin looked at him with knit brows. ‘You are a funny knife boy,’ she said at last. ‘There were no knife boys in Dublin but when we went to lunch in Celbridge Abbey we saw the ghost of a lady called Vanessa—we didn’t exactly see her ghost, we saw her bower in the garden where she does her haunting, but I met a knife boy there. He didn’t say “Sapristi”. He said “Begob”, and he had a dirty nose—Come back, it is very bad manners to walk off when a lady is speaking to you. Where are you going?’
‘To clean my nose.’
‘But it is not—Oh, I didn’t think you would start being cross with me so soon. I learned my alphabet so that I would be able to write to you. I learned to write “cat” and “dog” but when I started to write a letter to you these words were no use.’
He turned back. This was not the welcome he had planned. Life had quickened again for him when he had glimpsed her a while back; just as it had quickened the morning after the Big Wind when he had brought two copper jugs of hot water to an upstairs room and he had glimpsed the lovely baby that had come on the storm’s last gasp. The tiredness of the night had fallen from him, and the castle itself, because that little being would dwell there henceforth, had acquired an interest that had waned only when the carriage disappeared through the gates last January. Now she was back and here he was displaying boorish resentment! As though he had any right to resent anything that she might choose to say!
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Come out here till I show you something.’ He led her across the yard to the smith’s shed where two massive iron supports had been forged to support the trunk of the great oak that used to stand in the centre of the lawn. ‘Why!’ she gasped. ‘It has come to life again. It looks like a great big seat growing out of the ground with branches on it.’
‘That is exactly what it is meant to look like,’ he said, ‘and see here.’ He showed her the initials entwined in a heart that her papa had carved when he first brought her mamma to Kilsheelin.
When the fallen oaks had been taken away to some cabinet maker the Sir had ordered that this one was not to be removed. He had given no further instructions about it and it had lain in a corner of the yard forgotten until Young Thomas, looking at the initials one day, thought it a pity to see this record of romance lying neglected. He had shown the initials to Rafferty the castle carpenter and asked him how the tree might be preserved. When Rafferty suggested a seat Young Thomas had brought a book from the library showing a sketch of a pulpit in a church in Belgium. It seemed to be scooped out of a tree that had all its branches still growing. It was just the kind of fanciful work that appealed to Rafferty. He was only happy when he was given some lovely period piece to repair or preserve.
Roderick looked with wonder at Young Thomas when Rafferty said that his was the inspiration for the magnificent structure. The surface of the great trunk had been hollowed and planed, and some of its branches had been cunningly contrived with the aid of skilled carving to appear to be growing from it in a graceful intertwining pattern. The trunk had not, as Thomas had assumed, gone unnoticed by Sir Roderick. Oftimes as he passed it lying there he would recall its grandeur in life; recall, too, that it had been the sound of its crash that had caused him to open the window and admit the storm’s first onslaught. The initials he had carved, his own and those of his lovely bride, faced him now from the centre of the seat’s back. And this gracious thought had come from the little ragamuffin who had scuttled away that morning in a trail of brown trusty like—like? Roderick couldn’t remember what he had reminded him of then and he could not recall what, or whom, he reminded him of now; that wide brow, the poise of lip, the sensitive nostril; someone? ‘Thank you Thomas,’ he said quietly. ‘I appreciate your thought—and, your perception.’
He couldn’t know either that Thomas felt a thrill of pleasure that the ‘young’ had, for the first time been omitted. He couldn’t know that the sensitivity that he had noticed for the first time had been sculpted forth by himself. It had started when, as he led the doctor to tend Big John’s shoulder after that night ride he had seen the child lying across two wooden chairs in a sleep of prostration and had given a curt order that the boy be covered. When the nameless waif heard later who it was who had been responsible for the luxury of a tarpaulin rug, his awe had merged into an agony of gratitude that had awakened the questing clamour of his intellect.
The seat was placed where the tree had stood in life. Cushions were placed in its couched length and here Margaret lay in the sunny days that stretched into mid-September, cherished and tended, her mind relaxed in the detachment of waiting motherhood. Returning to Kilsheelin had been, after all her fears, a joyous experience. The people had stopped working in the fields and run towards the roadside as their carriage passed. Some of them gave great shouts of ‘Repeal’ as they ran, ‘as though,’ Roderick had said, ‘we had Repeal packed safely in one of our valises’.
It was good to come home when the fruits of the earth were coming home. From where she lay she could see the carts laden with sheaves coming across the fields to the yard. Later she heard the sound of laughter and merriment as extra hands joined the workers in the yard for the threshing. No tortured lowings sounded from the fields these nights. The country under the discipline of Repeal was crimeless.
The season’s toil came to a glorious climax with the dance at the end of the ten days’ threshing. Sky and earth were bathed in the refulgent brightness of the harvest moon as Margaret lay under the flowered drapes of her bed and listened to the music of fiddles and melodeons and bagpipes that came through the open window.
Suddenly there was a hush in the laughter and the twanging. A ripple of musical sound throbbed out on the air, and Margaret knew that the Bard had condescended to grace the dance with his presence. A little cloud came over her mood. The bard played such sad music! But no sadness came from the harp strings. Its music was part of the lyric of the night. Three notes formed the prelude; the first low and deep, the second tender and the third so full of life and passion that the leaves ceased their whispering and the birds in their nests were beguiled into sending back sleepy trills.
When the clapping had subsided the strings throbbed out again in a melody that surprised Margaret, for she knew the Bard dismi
ssed Moore’s melodies as modern and trivial. But she was still more surprised when a young voice took up the refrain.
Believe me if all those endearing young charms
‘Roderick,’ she called towards the dressing-room. He came in his robe and stood listening at the window until the song ended.
‘Who on earth,’ she asked him, ‘owns that delightful voice?’
He turned from the window and discarded his robe. ‘I have an idea that it is the property of our highly individual knife boy.’
‘Then, you knew that he could sing like that?’
He snuffed the candles and got into bed. No darkening followed their quenching; just a lovely slow whitening as the moon’s rays took over. ‘Darling,’ he said flinging his arm across the pillow. ‘You should always wear moonlight.’ He kissed her and sighed pleasantly. ‘It has been a long day.’ He had been abroad since dawn. She repeated her question about Young Thomas. ‘Yes,’ he murmured sleepily. ‘Lady Cullen mentioned to me that she had heard him sing at the Crossroads dancing last Corpus Christi. She said she slowed the brougham to listen to him. I meant to speak to Hegarty about it. I won’t have my staff clowning for the public. The business of the seat put his bad behaviour out of my head.’
‘The seat was a graceful thought, Roderick, for a young kitchen boy! It reminds me of Bruckstruyn’s famous pulpit at Malines.’
Much later, when she thought he was asleep, Margaret heard a muffled voice, from the pillows, say, ‘There must be quite a lot about that boy that I don’t know.’
Next day he learned something about his knife boy that Thomas had prayed might never reach the Sir’s ears. It was gale day. Tenants came in a steady trickle and lingered over their payments longer than usual. They all wanted to talk about Repeal. All of them wore Repeal buttons in their lapels. Those of them who had not been to the Monster meeting at Tara had been to the nearby town of Cashel on Corpus Christi when O’Connell had addressed four hundred thousand people. Roderick was glad to see Black Pat. The bell rope was tugged straight away for refreshments and over their glasses they reminisced pleasantly. He asked about his wife whom he had not yet met, and about the farm occupied by Sterrin’s wet nurse, Mrs. Conry. It was worrying him. It was not being worked satisfactorily except for whatever assistance Black Pat could give, and for over a year no rent had been paid.
‘We’ll make a match for her,’ said Black Pat, getting to his feet. ‘There’s nothing like a husband for taking the bare look off a woman.’ Roderick assured him that he was more concerned about having the bare look removed from the farm.
No farmer had ever been evicted from the Kilsheelin estate, but no landlord could be expected to allow one of his holdings to go to rack and ruin. Mrs. Conry had gradually come to identify herself with Black Pat’s fosterage connection because he had continued to sow and save her crops since the day she became Sterrin’s wet nurse. Roderick decided to go and see her right away. When he rang for his horse the servant who answered said that George Lucas was outside, pleading for an interview.
The name conveyed nothing to Sir Roderick. He had forgotten about the small dark man to whom he had given temporary employment after being evicted with nineteen others by Major Darby because a sheep had been stolen. Lucas came in twisting his hairskin cap in his hand; but he came right to the point. He wanted permission to marry into the Widow Conry’s farm.
It should be the solution of the problem. The man was a good worker, honest, conscientious. Demmit, he didn’t have to be likeable as well! Roderick studied the little face, neither young nor old, smooth yet finely shrivelled like an apple pulled too soon. The thin hair was blue-black and the small eyes had a blue-black sheen. Like a beetle, Roderick thought. Aloud he said, ‘There are tenants of my own with sons who have a stronger claim on any vacant farm.’
The man gave the cap another twist. ‘With respects to your Honour’s Sir, you wouldn’t say that they would have a stronger claim than Miss Sterrin’s foster-mother?’ Blast the fellow’s presumption! Roderick curbed an inclination to have him thrown out. Why did it have to be Sterrin’s foster-mother-of-sorts who had captured his farming fancy? And what could a fine-looking woman see in this little yellow bittern? Curtly he told him to return next day. Meanwhile he would talk to Black Pat. Roderick didn’t believe in interfering in the lives—and loves—of his tenants. Once, in his schooldays he had encountered an entire family cast from their home because the father permitted the eldest daughter to marry without first seeking his landlord’s consent. The feudal brutality of the incident had sickened him. But Mrs. Conry had a claim on his interest—he looked up impatiently. Hadn’t the fellow gone yet?
‘Your Honour—Herself—my Intended, bid me ask your permission to have the young scholar that cleans your knives serve the Wedding Mass.’
Roderick frowned, ‘I don’t supply Mass servers. You may go.’ So his knife boy was a scholar as well as a singer! The man turned back at the door and there was a blue-black glitter in the small eyes. Roderick had a sudden mnemonic flash of very young days and Black Pat showing him a particularly ugly beetle called the darraghadheal. If one killed it in a special way and repeated a stipulated number of Our Fathers and Hail Marys one would be forgiven the Seven Deadly Sins because, Black Pat explained, the darraghadheal had led the soldiers up to the spot in Gethsemane where Our Lord was praying.
‘It was only, your Honour,’ the man was saying, ‘that my Intended was in the church last Shrovetide when the lad served the Wedding Mass for James Keating’s son and Miss Prendergast.’ He bobbed a half curtsey and went out. Roderick strode to the bellrope. ‘Mass Server!’ he fumed. ‘He’ll be a notice server when I’m finished with him.’
Sterrin rushed after Young Thomas when the unprecedented summons came for him to appear at once before the Sir. Her papa closed the heavy door in her face. No inkling escaped through its panels or keyhole. She tore round to the open window where she caught some of his angry words. ‘...damnation... cheapening my service... singing to Crossroad gatherings... not paid to acquire a classical education... Latin!... to be availed of for the weddings of every Tom, Dick and Harry!’
Sterrin thought that Young Thomas looked quite different. The white tenseness of his face made him look like someone else altogether. Her papa had the same impression. Another countenance seemed to be straining out through the blanched face of the knife boy; one strangely familiar. The impression persisted in the boy’s answer.
‘The Latin was availed of your Honour’s Sir, by the priest, and for the purpose of serving his Mass.’
‘You are insolent,’ said Sir Roderick confounded by the simple dignity of the reply. His accusation sounded as unjust in his own ears as in those of his daughter—and, in his knife boy’s. ‘How old are you?’ he demanded.
Thomas was confused. ‘I—I’m not sure your Honour’s Sir.’
‘You are old enough,’ his master told him coldly, ‘to know where your loyalty should lie. I will have no disloyalty in my service. You may go.’
There was an awful finality about the words. Thomas took it that he was to go from his master’s service as well as from his presence.
Another door closed against Sterrin—but not deliberately—as she chased after Thomas. She pushed this one open and found him sitting on his bed forlornly; his eyes fixed on the granite floor where pieces of mica sparkled from the care he lavished on every cherished inch of his precious little cubicle of a room.
‘Is he sending you away?’ she asked solemnly. He gave no answer. His throat was too full; all the way back to the desolation that ranged about his heart. ‘Young Thomas!’ she pleaded. He squeezed his eyes tight until they felt cleared of the prickling moisture. All his book-learning and visioning had turned into comical presumption; comical to others. He was just a lonely, friendless boy, panic-stricken at the thought of leaving his beloved home.
‘Damnation, Thomas, answer me!’
He opened his eyes. ‘So you heard!’
‘There
were some other words like that but I couldn’t catch them while I was climbing to the window sill. Young Thomas, why did you keep it secret from me? About those weddings I mean. I wouldn’t have told, even about the Keatings although they are our enemies.’
‘It must have been that sneaky little Lucas who told. He has been a-courting your foster-mother while you were in Dublin. I suppose he’s been here looking for permission to marry into her place. I hope he doesn’t get it. He is not the type of our tenants.’
Our tenants! The phrase brought him to his feet. ‘I’d better pack my belongings.’ He looked around at them; the bar of perfumed soap beside the cracked Doulton basin, discarded from upstairs. The cigar box beside it held the two linen handkerchiefs purchased since Miss Sterrin’s reference to the knife boy with the snotty nose. Beneath the stand the pair of boots made by the Scout of finest leather reserved for the Quality. He looked hesitantly at the surtout hanging behind the door. It was scarcely his—to take away. It had descended upon him, taken in and up, when her Ladyship had ordered new livery with special padding for the coachman’s injured shoulder.
He turned away to the galleried table, minus a leg. On it lay the treasure that no one could prevent him from taking away; unless perhaps the donor decided to do so.
But the sight of her gift Saint John’s Eve fondled in his hands sent her hurtling up the back stairs to seek the intervention of Nurse Hogan. There was no use approaching that fierce, unfamiliar looking Papa who mouthed blasts and damnations.
Nurse Hogan was aghast. Young Thomas dismissed! Young Thomas was dear to her. When she first came he was the only one of the Gaelic-speaking gossoons who could speak English to her. He was the only one also who had no background, no relatives, not even a name. No one knew anything about him. He had arrived here shortly before herself. Anything that might have been known about him had died with the housekeeper on the night of the Big Wind. His plight had gone to her heart. She it was who had first indulged his studiousness. It was she who had got him promoted from the toleration of hanger-on status to the payroll of staff. She made a quick swish towards her Ladyship’s boudoir. But the Sir was there, deep in conversation and looking in no mood to brook interruption.
The Big Wind Page 16