An opened door revealed an unmistakable profile. Nonie crouched back. She recognised Pat’s beautiful cousin, Kitty, the wife of Mark Hennessey. Kitty was offering a sergeant’s wife an embroidered cloth with a fall of lace nearly half a yard deep. The woman quoted a price and Kitty, too proud and too weary to haggle, accepted. A cloth that might grace a banquet changed hands for a florin.
Eightpence a dozen Nonie got for her stockings; if only she might have retained a few pairs for the children. The quartermaster’s wife glimpsed the wistful little face as it turned back into the shadows. ‘Here, little girl,’ she called after her. ‘Here’s a halfpenny for yourself. Don’t hand it up to your mammy.’
Nonie thanked her sweetly. The woman’s husband who had made a fortune on handovers for contracts met a child gazing apparently rapt, at the halfpenny in the middle of her small palm. He dropped another one on top of it. ‘Now you have a whole penny.’
In the street the little jets of repressed laughter were followed by repressed tears. The butcher, putting up the shutters saw her wipe them as she glimpsed the piece of beef that lay lonely on a slab. ‘H-how much is it?’ The pretty voice caught on a little hegging breath. ‘Here, take it home to your mammy.’ He pushed it into her basket. ‘Take this too.’ He shoved a big piece of suet after the beef.
A Bianconi overtook her on the road home. The driver mistook her for a child and since Mr. Bianconi’s instructions were never to pass by a woman carrying a baby nor a child that was heavily laden, she was still clutching her two halfpennies when she dismounted. ‘Unless ye become as little children,’ she grinned ruefully.
The girl has the divine gift of comedy, thought Sir Roderick O’Carroll. The lights of the Bianconi and of his own carriage showed him the glitter of curls and of smiling teeth. She sees her life as a joke; not a calamity. Nonie started to decline the lift he offered but he had taken the basket from her. ‘It is heavy,’ he exclaimed, ‘much too heavy for you!’
‘The children will soon lighten it,’ she said. Then in case he got the impression of want, she added casually. ‘It is amazing how much children eat.’
‘Tell me,’ he leaned towards her, ‘what were you laughing at just now?’ The darkness held them in its intimacy. It showed up that distant gleam of romance that had been stillborn.
‘Nothing much. The driver mistook me for a child and would not take my fare. I omitted to enlighten him.’
‘I can understand why he made the error.’
But there was nothing childlike in the voice that replied. The former Oenone Mansfield had suddenly enough of patronage; halfpennies, hunks of beef, and his Sirship’s carriage. Cool, educated, its accent as dignified as his own, her voice assailed him. ‘Can I help the impression that people choose to take of me? I can assure you that I don’t seek to make an impression, of any kind, on anyone.’ She groped for the basket. The carriage was slowing in to the castle gates but already she was on the road pulling at the big, uncouth basket.
‘Allow me.’ Demmit, this was absurd! Behaving as though he were squiring a lady with a rose basket. She looked at the basket he held towards her. Bulging loaves had forced up the lid. Suddenly she put her hands inside her hood and inside her lovely golden hair. There was frenzy in the gesture as though she were gripping something in there that wanted to burst out and prevent her from resuming this uncouth burden that typified her life.
He sensed the anguish on her old-young face and his interest quickened as it would not to a happy woman. Then the proud imp of comedy returned to her. It prompted her to take her leave with a gesture of equality. Instead of grasping the handle, she arched her wrist high in the fashionable over-a-five-bar-gate handshake.
He matched her gesture with his own. Very deliberately, he shifted the basket to his left hand. As his lips touched her fingers, she felt a curious pulsation as of frozen ground that feels the first warm breath of spring. Before he could speak, she had snatched the basket and vanished into the darkness; just as she had vanished from the hunting field into the darkness of the spinney.
*
Kitty Hennessey had returned from Templetown and invited Young Thomas to sup with them. She smiled as Mark stopped in the act of pouring the watery porridge. ‘Baker’s bread!’ He stared unbelieving. It was weeks since he had seen soda bread; much less baker’s!
‘Yes,’ said Kitty nonchalantly. ‘I got some in the town. Draw in your chair. Young Thomas.’
Thomas thought her face looked transparent. He wondered what she had parted with to get the bread. But it was good to see her eat so heartily. He didn’t know that the quickening of a second child was quickening her constant hunger. She did not thrill to these stirrings as she had for Theobald’s when Thomas had sung the proud songs of Mr. Davis, and her heart had surged with hope. Vo, Vo, for the heritage she had envisaged in their strains. Vo, Vo, for the great man who wrote them!
After supper, the Hennesseys walked to the gate with Young Thomas. ‘May God fasten the life strong in you,’ Mark said to him in Gaelic. Thomas looked back at them, standing there so splendid, both of them; so brave! To his own surprise he cried out, ‘Sursum corda!’
Mark looked long after the boy. ‘It is a pity,’ he said musingly, ‘to see him a servant boy. He has the makings of a priest. Aren’t those Latin words in the Mass, Kitty?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Raise up your hearts, they mean. But a priest, inagh! That boy was made for woman’s love.’
As Mark barred the door for the night, he turned on a sudden. ‘Kitty,’ he asked, ‘what did you sell to buy that bread?’ She shrugged the heirloom from her vision. ‘A bit of sewing,’ she answered.
At Kilsheelin, Sterrin was wondering how long more would she have to continue her sacrifice. Lent was over, but still she made sacrifice. Bits of chocolate pudding, anything that she really relished. And still no sign of Divine Clemency. She peeped into her room. It would be too soon to expect her offering to be taken. She had left it barely ten minutes ago. But, always she hugged the hope that some day she might catch Little Jesus unawares, in the act of eating the jelly!
It was not the Iosagain the Holy Child whom she caught unawares. It was Mickey-the-turf. She stood rooted with horror at the spectacle of his sacrilege.
She strode to him and jerked up his face. Desperately he strove with his turf-mouldy cuff to wipe a white smear of blancmange from mouth and chin. But the turf mould had blended with the blancmange and gave him a bearded, sinister look that was Judas-like. ‘You caluminator!’ she fumed. ‘You blasphemer! You adulterer!’
Mickey-the-turf quailed. Only from the pulpit when it shook with the exhortations of the missioner had he ever heard such awful words.
‘May it choke you!’ she cried. She lashed him forth with her crop as the money changers had been lashed forth by Him Whom she had hoped to appease by sustaining Him in His desert fast.
‘No wonder people are still suffering!’ she sobbed to Thomas, whom she had found in the pantry, polishing silver.
Never in the unconscious arrogance of her brief existence had she known what it was to be tricked and humiliated. She had been so utterly buoyed up by her sacrifice; ‘And Iosagain never got one little bit!’ The big tears spilled over. They wet her face. Her body shuddered in the way of those who seldom cry.
Thomas patted the hand that still rested on his arm. He had never seen her weep like this. Her Ladyship’s full soft eyes could moisten easily. But Miss Sterrin’s more deeply set, guarded their tears in their own depths. He scraped his throat. ‘Don’t cry. Miss Sterrin, asthore,’ he murmured hoarsely, uncertain whether to offer her Mickey-the-turf’s head on the salver he had been polishing or kill her a half dozen dragons.
Roderick, on his way to the gun room, paused at the sound of his daughter’s sobs coming from the silver pantry across the passage. He heard young Thomas say gently, ‘Miss Sterrin, maybe you have been too righteous about the sacrifice of your nice jelly.’
‘Righteous?’
‘Th
e kind of goodness that the Proud Pharisee felt.’
‘Young Thomas! How could you compare me with that craw-thumping hypocrite?’ A deep sigh wafted across to the gun room. ‘Ah, young Thomas, I thought that you at least would understand. At night in bed I keep seeing Dominic Landy’s face amongst the soldiers; it reminds me of Our Lord going to Calvary. The young Ryans’ faces too. They were so disappointed when they heard that I must not bring them any more food. You see, I didn’t want people to know that I was sacrificing my jelly. I didn’t tell even you, Young Thomas.’
‘A pity you didn’t. But don’t fret Miss Sterrin. You made the sacrifice. You will get your reward, and,’ he added grimly, ‘so will Mickey-the-turf.’
Roderick was dubious about that ‘I didn’t tell even you, Young-Thomas’, but he must warn her not to lie awake at nights over the young Ryans. There were too many children in real need. He recalled their mother’s laden basket. That he ought not to have allowed her to carry? Demmit, this was farcical. He couldn’t go round the country carrying market baskets. Why in hell’s gates hadn’t she been away from home the day Black Pat had clattered into her father’s yard on business? As she had been when Black Pat’s foster-brother had ridden by.
Tomorrow was Gale Day. He must enquire from Black Pat if there was anything that he lacked. But in the morning Black Pat’s rent was brought to the library by the butler.
‘Mr. Ryan Duv was in a hurry, your Honour’s Sir. He could not wait.’
* A water horse of fairy origin.
23
On May the twenty-fourth, Margaret handed over the food ladling to Nurse Hogan.
She came to the library door to ask Roderick if he would soon be ready to start for town. The puzzled frown he gave her was for the bank manager’s letter he was reading; not as she assumed, for herself. ‘Blast the fellow,’ he muttered aloud. ‘Banks are for giving money; not for demanding it from their own clients.’
Margaret didn’t give him time to compliment her on looking so exceptionally chic and pretty, with a great spray of tea roses on her carriage cloak and an old-gold chip bonnet tied with cherry-coloured ribbons. She left the room and let the door close sharply behind her.
Roderick’s frown was deeper still as he emerged from the bank in Templetown. He bumped into Phineas De Lacey on the porch of the bank’s building. Phineas made no secret of his mission. He was seeking to get another mortgage on his estate. Only a few tenants had paid rent this Gale Day. He had been carrying the rest on his back all winter. ‘Do you think anything will come of O’Connell’s petition in the House today?’ Phineas asked. The Liberator, balked at every measure for alleviating the present distress, was to ask in the House that the Crown rents arising from the woods and forests in Ireland be retained there to pay the interest on the loan that the country had been forced to raise at its own expense.
Long bugle blasts drowned Roderick’s reply. The mail coach was making a resplendent entry into the main street. The special greys reserved for the Queen’s birthday made a great clattering. Both driver and guard wore new coats with scarlet facings. Bouquets drooped on their chests. Military parades and bands appeared but the usual crowds were missing. Only the Scout Doyle maintained the festive zeal. He stood at the coach landing depot wearing his Sunday Hardy Bastard, and plum-coloured body coat, and remembered to say, ‘Well may you wear,’ towards the coach driver’s new coat before asking for the passenger list.
Roderick had forgotten about the Queen’s birthday. So that was why Margaret had asked him about going to town! Every year he had escorted her to see the parades, and meet her friends. He glanced up and saw Big John’s cockade towering above the other coachmen outside the Mall coffee house.
He saw Margaret standing inside the door, the centre of fuss and greetings. There wasn’t an available table. The place was packed with the garrison ladies—all sporting the red, white and blue colours—and their escorts and parties of loyal County folk.
Roderick was angered to see Margaret venturing there alone. But she wasn’t alone for long. Lieutenant Fitzharding-Smith was instantly on his feet, summoning waiters and calling loudly for a table. Virginia Kennedy-Sherwin tried to make room but waiters came edging with a table over their heads, their feet tripping over swords.
Before Roderick could accept the Lieutenant’s invitation to join them Margaret declined for him. ‘Roderick is busy, Basil dear,’ she cooed, giving the full battery of her wonderful eyes to the enraptured young officer. ‘He has to give a lot of time to his tenants these days. Haven’t you, Roderick?’
While the waiters manipulated the table, Roderick managed to murmur, ‘Two can play at that game, my Lady.’
She flinched inwardly at the implied threat, but smiled sweetly and said, ‘I know. The second one has started to play.’
He strode out fuming. The military parades had passed out of sight, but another parade came past Roderick, straggling in the opposite direction... no bands, no banners. They were the poorest farmers who could not wait for the approaching crop that promised so abundantly. They were walking towards the poor-house. The Repeal buttons in their rags proclaimed that they had marched in the hope and glory of Repeal year. Now they moved to the music of the birthday salvoes—‘like throngs of tattered beggars following, where late went by the pageant of a king’. Hope had left them and even as they made their way towards a living death, O’Connell, at Westminster, was told that the seventy-four thousand pounds rent from the yellow woods of Ireland must be applied towards improving Her Majesty’s castle at Windsor and to the aggrandisement of Trafalgar Square.
Sir Roderick’s mood darkened when, at Kilsheelin, Hegarty told him that onions were the only vegetables left for dinner. Kilsheelin Castle without vegetables! It was fantastic.
‘Sure we’ve been feeding an army, your Honour’s Sir. A few showers after all this sun,’ murmured the butler, ‘and the peas will be bursting their pods.’
His master snorted. ‘Live horse and you’ll get grass.’ He was dining alone. Her Ladyship, Hegarty was informed, was Mrs. Kennedy-Sherwin’s guest at a garrison Birthday dinner. Miss Sterrin was staying the night at Kilincarrig Lodge with Miss Bunzy De Lacey. The onions, the butler assured him were most palatable when baked in their coats in the turf embers and served with butter.
‘And savin’ your Honour’s presence,’ murmured Hegarty confidentially, ‘they are less objectionable that way—afterwards!’
Onions tended to reminisce; a fact to which Margaret delicately objected when kissed. Well, she was not likely to be kissed within the memory of these onions. With savage relish Roderick ate the whole dishful.
It was late when he stamped into his dressing room and tugged the bell rope. When no one answered he stuck his head out the door and bellowed for someone to come and help him off with his jack boots! By right I should have a properly trained body servant, he grumbled, but at this rate of prosperity I’m damned lucky to have a body! ‘Young Thomas!’ he roared.
It was Margaret who came through the door. She stooped swiftly to draw off the obstinate boot but drew back at the anger of the face that almost touched hers. He misunderstood. ‘I’m sorry,’ he was coldly polite. ‘I have not been fortunate enough to go-a-feasting. You see. Her Majesty and her Government have overlooked the fact that their first duty of governing is to save human life. I have therefore been so busy saving the lives of Her Majesty’s subjects, that I have been compelled to eat onions on her birthday! I’m told they are objectionable—afterwards.’
She gripped his boot and lied bravely. ‘Roderick, I—I have been eating onions too.’
‘Indeed! How very inelegant—afterwards.’
‘I mean,’ she gripped harder, squatting at his feet, her big eyes pleading into his, ‘I mean, when two people eat onions—they don’t notice—’
He extended his foot. ‘Woman!’ he ordered. ‘Pull off that boot!’ She tugged hard and fell backwards clutching the boot to her chest. He lifted her up, boot and all and kissed he
r. Next minute the boot went sailing out through the window.
Young Thomas came racing around the corner of the castle. ‘The Sir is roaring for you,’ Johnny-the-buckets informed him. ‘He is going to kill you.’
‘He has killed me,’ said Young Thomas as a riding boot came through the air and hit him. He caught it without stopping and raced up the back stairs three at a time. ‘Your Honour,’ he called softly when his third knock went unanswered.
Through the closed door, his Honour told him to go to the devil.
*
The rain came and supplied the necessary swelling to the peas and beans. Then the sun returned and ripened vegetables earlier than ever before as though to make up for the earth’s severity in the autumn.
Margaret sighed as she watched the fine crop of peas dwindle down. She had distributed most of them to her tenants to help them over the last lap towards their own harvest. There would be no drying of beans and peas on the bleach greens for next winter! What matter! They had kept hunger at bay and—Roderick and she were back in their love again!
She accompanied him to Dublin when he journeyed to a special Repeal meeting. The Liberator was alarmed by the tone of the Young Ireland party in the Nation. It was becoming menacingly martial. He had written to his son John from England and ordered the meeting convened. In Conciliation Hall, Roderick listened to John O’Connell’s warning that these militant young men could imperil his great movement for a bloodless regeneration of the country. He called upon every member of the Repeal Association to come and renew his pledge against physical force.
Outside Conciliation Hall, Young Thomas sat on the carriage with the driver, sleepily recalling the day he had rushed panic-stricken from the hall thinking that it was he who had halted the march of Repeal. Suddenly he sat straight up. Through the open windows a voice came ringing.
‘Abhor the sword, my Lord. Stigmatise the sword!... No my Lord, for at its blow and in the quivering of its crimson light a giant nation sprang from the waters of the Atlantic and by its redeeming magic the fettered Colony became a daring free Republic...’ Thomas listened spellbound. Here was the authentic voice of youth, intrepid, defiant; calling on youth! Suddenly it broke off.
The Big Wind Page 24