‘’Tis the way Mrs. James Wright—Miss Berry Fogarty that was—is letting her parlour-maid—Attracta’s sister—help at the supper next week for the ball in the Assembly Rooms, when the gentlemen will bid to redeem the cloaks that the women were forced to pawn in the famine. Attracta was wondering if you would put a word in for her with Nurse Hogan to let her help, too. All the committee ladies are lending their staff.’
Attracta found her voice. ‘’Tis a great cause, Miss Sterrin,’ she murmured timidly. To Attracta, the cause of the cloaks that were handed from mother to daughter was more than great. ’Twas holy. Sterrin wrinkled her brows. She had quite forgotten the dance. ‘Weren’t all these cloaks redeemed years ago?’ she said impatiently. ‘Papa gave a big dance in the barn for the ones in this neighbourhood.’
‘Will I ever forget that supper!’ said Mrs. Stacey branching off into reminiscences. ‘There was fifteen hams and...’
Sterrin cut her short. ‘And there was a ball in the Assembly Rooms as well as lots of quilting parties.’
‘But your Honour’s miss,’ pleaded Attracta, ‘these are cloaks belonging to them that were too proud to admit that the clothes off their backs were in pawn, and they thought they could redeem them later when times would be better. Oh, ’twould be a terrible thing, Miss Sterrin, for a woman to live her life out with her fine cloak beyond her reach or the right to will it to her daughter!’
Dominic raised a buttery face from his boxtie. ‘Don’t mind her, Sterrin. It’s Lance Corporal Pluck she wants to meet. He’s playing in the band. Isn’t he, Attracta?’ His mischievous grin vanished when Mrs. Stacey whispered in one ear that she’d never make him another piece of boxtie. In the other, Attracta whispered that she’d never tell him another ghost story.
Sterrin strode back into the kitchen and put her arm around her brother. ‘Don’t attempt to threaten him,’ she said with cold anger. She rumpled his curls. ‘When you have eaten your boxtie, darling, come up to my room and I’ll read you a cheerful story. Ghost stories and boxtie are unwholesome diet for a little boy.’ The muted servants watched her dignified exit, her red flag still slung over her shoulder, and thought of the times when Miss Sterrin had gorged both ghosts and boxtie until she was too full to stand and too frightened to walk upstairs.
She passed into the yard, hating herself for her unfairness to the two women who doted on the child. Then she stopped dead.
It was seldom now that a visiting carriage came driving through the water-filled bawn to cleanse its wheels before the return journey. But it was not the carriage that transfixed her, nor the vague impression of Sir Jocelyn Devine stepping back from the splashes. It was the sight of the horse that looked out at her from Thuckeen’s stall! ‘Thuckeen! Thuckeen! Atais mo croidte! Joy of my heart,’ she gasped, ‘are you haunting me too?’ Her heart steadied and she patted the forehead and ran her hand down the gleaming neck. It was not Thuckeen, but it could be her double—a youthful double. Behind her a quiet voice said, ‘You like her. Miss Sterrin?’
She whirled about. ‘Oh, Sir Jocelyn, for a moment I thought it was Thuckeen’s ghost!’
‘Yes, the resemblance is remarkable. Their pedigrees are closely linked.’ Sterrin unbolted the door and moved in while the horse reared up.
‘She might have out-classed her, even,’ she murmured to herself as she soothed the timid creature. When she came out he said:
‘Aren’t you going to try her out?’ She shook her head. ‘It would only grig me. It is better for me to become accustomed to being without a horse.’
‘On the contrary, my dear, I think it is better that you should accustom yourself to Cloora straight away.’
‘Cloora!’ It was more a breath than a whisper.
‘You can rename her as you please. She is your property.’
‘Mine! You mean, Sir Jocelyn, that you are actually giving me this beautiful, this valuable horse?’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing less would be worthy of you.’ Her head spun. Young ladies did not accept gifts from gentlemen unless they were relatives or fiancés. Thuckeen had cost hundreds. This horse outclassed her. One could not appeal to Mamma just now. She drew herself up and made her gesture to the formalities.
‘Thank you, Sir Jocelyn. Thank you kindly, but I could not accept so costly a gift.’ The amethyst eyes were as wide with renunciation as they had been with concern when she had pleaded for the benefit of a railway for her countryfolk. He played up to the convention of her words and gestured his groom.
The sight of the man moving to unbolt the door was too much for Mike O’Driscoll as he stood beside Big John, mingling the sweat of their anxiety. He spat out his straw and hissed, ‘Is it gone mad you are, Miss Sterrin?’ Big John broke through the decorum of years as he stepped forward, his Caroline held above the thick grey waves and said gravely, ‘Your Honour’s Sir, I ask your pardon for taking a liberty, but if I might make bold to suggest that Miss Sterrin ought to postpone her decision until her Ladyship recovers. It would be only due to you and...’ he looked longingly at the head that poked over Thuckeen’s half door, ‘...to the horse.’
When the carriage had passed under the great arch of the stable gate she turned to the coachman and lifted her hands towards him in a gesture that recalled the days when he used to lift her on to the backs of the horses. She placed them on his shoulders and, lightly as she pressed the maimed one, he winced. ‘Oh, poor Big John!’ she cried remembering. ‘Oh, that terrible Big Wind! And,’ she added inconsequentially, ‘it was all my fault.’
‘Miss Sterrin,’ he murmured with the gentleness of love, ‘if her Ladyship was at herself she would tell you—and so would the young Sir—’, she knew he didn’t mean Dominic, ‘that a young lady does not treat the offer of a magnificent blood-horse the same as if it were a box of Limerick gloves.’
She playfully patted the good shoulder. ‘And they would also tell me, Big John, my Guardian Angel, that a gentleman does not offer a young lady a horse worth at least a thousand guineas the same as if it were just a box of Limerick gloves.’ She turned to where Mike and Pakie were standing in reverence before the animal. ‘But, oh, Big John, I’d have died if that glorious creature had gone through that door again and left Thuckeen’s stable empty.’ Before he could answer she had gone, tearing through the kitchen entrance.
As the wine-coloured carriage rolled behind its four bays towards the lodge, a flying figure came alongside. ‘Sir Jocelyn,’ she gasped. She couldn’t get out another word, for her breath hurt after the mad race. ‘It has all been so sudden, like an apparition.’ She gulped and swallowed. ‘And I don’t want to seem disloyal to Thuckeen, but I have never seen anything so lovely in my life as Cloora—Clooreen.’
He watched for a moment the beautiful lips panting out words and breaths that blew warmly against his face. Exertion had reddened them as it did with people of her pallor. Her skin glowed with light instead of colour. Her eyes played no tricks except to cope with the blue shimmering of their own intensity.
‘If you have never seen anything lovelier than Cloora, or Clooreen, then go straight to your mirror.’ She shot out her underlip and blew a shining curl back from the tip of her nose. A primitively delightful gesture, he thought. ‘Goodbye, my dear, I shall be back within the month for your mother’s sanction.’
Twenty minutes later she knew again the surging thrill of riding high over the world on the back of a galloping thoroughbred. Straight for Cuilnafunchion she made and tried Clooreen with her first jump at the gap where she had been humbled.
Diana without a steed, inagh! she gritted, as Clooreen bunched her four dainty hooves beyond coarse contact with the gap. Now let Donal Keating sneer.
*
The Coats of Arms of such local aristocracy as still lived in the district were picked out on the walls of the Assembly Room with red and white dahlias; but out of appreciation of Lady O’Carroll’s great kindness in breaking her long seclusion to lend her patronage, and in recognition of the family’s right t
o fly the ancient flag of blue, there were blue and white flowers on the O’Carroll escutcheon. It was a brilliant occasion. The last of the cloaks was to be redeemed. The ladies looked lovely and pleased. The gentlemen gallant and romantic. For Mrs. Wright, it was a triumph. Yet something was amiss. The second dance was coming to a close but there was no sign of Lady O’Carroll. Mrs. Wright began to feel slighted. She had not enlisted the patronage of the new gentry who occupied the estates purchased in the Encumbered Estates Market. Now, the main feature of the night, the auctioning of the cloaks was due to be announced and Lady O’Carroll not here to set it going. She turned towards a buzzing of excitement near the door. A lovely girl was coming straight towards her. ‘My mother became indisposed. She sent me in her place rather than disappoint you.’
Heaven forgive me, Sterrin prayed. Nurse Hogan had almost swooned when she came downstairs with the note of excuse to be dispatched by phaeton and saw that Sterrin, resplendent in her Paris gown, intended to deliver the note in person. When the nurse had exhausted her reproaches and remonstrances she concluded with the stock exclamation. ‘This could be the death of her Ladyship.’
‘If it could then,’ Sterrin had replied, ‘she must be protected from knowing about it. If this reaches her ears I shall hold you responsible for any consequences.’ She was suddenly sick of Nurse Hogan’s proprietorial airs and interferences.
Mrs. Wright disposed Sterrin in the seat of honour on the balcony amongst the non-dancing committee ladies. It was quite obvious to Sterrin that there was no question of her taking part in the dancing. To the committee ladies she was there in the stern purpose of a stern cause. She leaned over the balcony and pretended to take an interest in the crayon drawings on the floor of lovely girls in flowing cloaks of all colours. Her roving eyes could not discern anyone she might entice up here to lead her out.
The Master of Ceremonies announced the first performance in Ireland of ‘King Pippin’s Polka’, the dance that had taken London by storm. He guaranteed that it would set every toe itching. Sterrin’s toes responded to the guarantee immediately but the only offers to relieve their itch came from two semi-invalids. Mr. Enright tapped the region of his enlarged heart and said, in what he thought was a gay doggy manner, that only for that he would break through decorum that chained her to do duty for her mother, and seek the honour of leading her out. Lord Patrick Cullen caught sight of the bronze curls amongst the white caps of the matrons and hastened to pay his respects. He made no effort to conceal his astonishment at finding her at her first public dance unchaperoned.
‘A pity,’ he said when she explained, ‘that they are playing this damned polka. The only dance that I could offer to lead you out in with this damned leg is the waltz.’
They stood behind her at either shoulder, chatting while the gay music wasted its substance and the M.C. announced that the local soprano would sing ‘Where Are the Friends of My Youth?’. It only needed that, thought Sterrin. Two crippled cavaliers and the committee ladies weeping for the friends of their youth! The ladies put their moist handkerchiefs in their reticules when the song had ended and leaned behind her, debating something that seemed to concern her.
They were perturbed about the correctness of asking her to take her place so prominently on the platform that was being wheeled into the centre of the ballroom. They had planned that Lady O’Carroll would stand there beside the M.C. while he auctioned some new cloaks that had been presented by benefactors. The beautiful stately widow in flowing crepe was scarcely to be substituted in office, however benevolent—by a seventeen-year-old girl who was vividly, challengingly lovely.
‘It might be indelicate,’ murmured Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Enright found Sterrin’s looks disturbing and muttered about ‘a snare and a delusion’. Sterrin gave something approaching a wink to Patrick Cullen and said to the mortified Quaker:
‘I assure you, Mrs. Enright, that I have not come here on my mother’s behalf either to snare or delude.’
Everyone crowded round to reassure her, but the indomitable Quaker held her ground. ‘Thee are overready to be loud in self-justification, Sterrin O’Carroll.’ But Sterrin wasn’t going to be balked of the fun of the auction.
‘You want money, don’t you? Fussing about etiquette won’t keep these unfortunate women warm in the depths of the winter. Why, some of them can’t get to church or chapel. It’s a great cause,’ she added, remembering Attracta. ‘Come on, Patrick, start the bidding.’
Her appearance upon the raised dais a few minutes later had the effect of an apparition. A young lady, not more than a girl, standing up before a crowded ballroom! Such a sight had never been seen there before. She was wearing the robe de style that had been sent from Paris for the dinner that had feted the railroad. Its champagne velvet folds and drapes that fell away to disclose the gold lace Valenciennes underskirt were displayed to perfection by the raised dais that served as a pedestal for gown and wearer.
Mrs. Wright saw to it that the M.C. stressed the fact that Miss O’Carroll, at great personal inconvenience, was taking the last-minute place of her mother, Lady O’Carroll, who was regrettably indisposed, and trusted that the bidders would show their appreciation of her unselfish charity. He then presented a cloak to Sterrin who held it wide for the general inspection while the gold lace fell from her extended arms and revealed them white and shapely. Patrick’s bid was drowned at utterance. The sovereigns clattered for the object—it mattered not what—that was displayed between those lovely arms.
From the corners of her eye she saw the crimson cloak tossed to Darcey Lubey, the elegant son of the gombeen man. Dragoons with pinched waists and shoulders ablaze with golden shells pressed round her throne and sought to catch her glance with every bid. She smiled at each and quickly turned with questioning look to demand more and more outrageous bids from the upturned faces and clamouring voices.
The funds mounted beyond the wildest dreams of Mrs. Wright. She was getting uneasy. There was something bizarre to her in the spectacle of the gently-bred girl attracting all those gentlemen about her like moths, dazzled by the flame of her radiance. What if Lady O’Carroll reproached her for this exploitation of her daughter? Mrs. Enright took no joy from the sight of the salver of gold being emptied and replenished. The cause had been gained by means that were ungodly.
But she could not know that Sterrin had swept on to the dais in the surge of feeling from the evening’s ride that had yielded rebirth after the long, unyouthful spell of tragedy and calamity and grief and responsibility and depression that seemed to climax with the ending of Thuckeen. Here was an unrehearsed joyousness to which she could respond; acclaim that was balm to a spirit that had been brought too low. Her laughter rang out as bids were disputed and overtopped and daring buyers pushed forward to demand that she cast the cloak about the shoulders of successful bidders.
Suddenly her smile shortened. Donal Keating, coming late to the ballroom, had shouldered his way through the excited crowd. He stood still for a moment staring at the tall, golden girl. A gentleman beside him cried out, ‘Ten sovereigns!’ Donal called, ‘Twelve!’ The girl’s smile acknowledged the bids then passed to him with a questioning quirk of her black eyebrows that suddenly dropped as she recognised him. ‘Fifteen!’ called a voice in front of him. Donal’s voice drowned the next bid, ‘Twenty-five!’ he called.
Mrs. Enright pulled the M.C.’s sleeve. ‘Knock it down to him,’ she commanded quite clearly. The auctioneer lifted his mock hammer and reached for the cloak Sterrin held. Not, she thought, if he bid one hundred and twenty-five! With a flick of her wrist she whirled the cloak about her shoulders and, slipping her arms through the inside loops, she held the lovely garment wide, then moved a little to display the graceful flow of its folds. The effect was dramatic. It was the handsomest cloak of the lot. Mrs. Wright had accepted it unwillingly from the wife of the Liverpool coffin-ship owner, who now occupied Lord Templetown’s mansion. It was of a lighter shade of blue than the customary type. It had white satin
lining and at least fifty yards of velvet ribbon trimmed its hem and hood. Sterrin wished she could own the gorgeous thing. Fancy any farmer’s wife lugging eggs to market in this!
There were cries of ‘ravishing!’ Bids mounted. Mrs. Wright took hold of one of the M.C.’s coat tails. Mrs. Enright grabbed the other. ‘Stop it!’ they urged. He gave them a mute shrug of helplessness and turned to accept the bids. Donal Keating topped his own bid by another ten pounds. He prayed that James’s James might not hear of this night’s doings.
Then someone made a gaffe. ‘A thousand guineas for the ensemble; cloak and wearer!’ a voice cried. In the sudden silence, the M.C. took the cloak from Sterrin’s shoulders and announced supper. As he preceded her to the supper-room her path was blocked by what looked ominously like a quarrel. A very angry Lord Cullen was speaking to a gentleman with a scarlet cloak dangling from his shoulders. Lady Biddy Cullen was stage-whispering to her husband not to risk being killed in a duel for the sake of defending Sterrin O’Carroll’s brazen conduct.
The man with the scarlet cloak turned and Sterrin recognised Darcey Lubey. He made an elaborate bow. ‘Forgive me, Miss O’Carroll, you deputised so admirably for Lady O’Carroll that I was quite carried away.’ Sterrin gave him a cool glance, ‘Thank you,’ she answered. ‘I could deputise for my father equally well but when he taught me to fence he explained to me that a tradesman may not lay claim to the point of honour. ’Tis the prerogative of a gentleman.’ She sailed into the supper room with head high. A latecomer with the tabs of a captain crowded after her. Could it be possible? The last time he had seen her she was standing on a wall waving him goodbye when he was leaving for India.
The next morning, Sterrin was coming downstairs to join her mother for a carriage promenade when she saw Lady Biddy Cullen’s carriage drive up. No inkling of last night’s outing had reached her mother. It will reach her now, Sterrin thought, and waited on the landing to be summoned to retribution.
The Big Wind Page 47