In the Middle of the Fields

by Mary Lavin

  Miss Lomas, as always had to acknowledge the wisdom of his words, but she had one question she had to put to him. ‘Will Christy agree to all this? That’s the problem as I see it,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said George simply and sincerely. ‘Parr seems confident that if we butter the fellow up enough the notion of being a big landowner will ensure that he will agree to anything. Parr is also going to give him a few words of advice about keeping clear of his father’s people once he’s a man of property.’ Here George went to the door. He looked very tired but Miss Lomas was touched to see he still had thought for her. ‘Rest assured everything will continue as before. I will continue to graze the land as hitherto, and of course, be responsible for the expenses of running the house.’

  Miss Lomas made a valiant effort to appear happy but she still had a niggling worry. ‘If Christy agrees to this plan, how long will it be before you buy the place back from him?’ She had dire misgivings at the thought of being dependent on Christy for even the shortest of time.

  George laughed. ‘About a few weeks,’ he said offhandedly, and then, although he had opened the door, he shut it again. ‘I forgot to tell you the most important part of the plan,’ he said. ‘You must forgive me but the fatigue of the last few hours is taking a toll of me. The main reason I brought you in here, in the first place, apart from its always being a pleasure to see you, was to tell you that a bit of penmanship will be demanded of you too, dear lady, in connection with this tiresome business. On the evening of the sale and after the signing of the mortgage, I will be presenting Christy with an account on behalf of the Garretstown estate, for a number of items for which the estate has been out of pocket going back to the day poor Joss bought Brook Farm, or at least for as far back as is allowable under the law of statutory declaration. The total of our outlay will be chargeable to the new buyer, and he will have to accept legal liability for that sum in the eyes of the law.’ All at once George sat down again. ‘Poor Christy. I could almost pity him,’ he said. Miss Lomas too, felt a sudden softness towards the fellow, but George had once more risen and gone to the door. ‘You understand the part you have to play in this, I hope?’ He said quietly. ‘You must see to it that all the indoor expenses of Brook Farm over the past years, will be drawn up in ledger form. And I expect the total to come to a nice tot. Do you get me?’ Seeing that she had only dimly got the drift of things he came back up the room. ‘Don’t worry. I will get Parr to explain to you. Parr will make everything as clear as daylight.’

  Yet a few days later when Mr Parr called to Brook Farm and had a long talk with her, Miss Lomas was still muddled in her mind. She kept asking question after question. In the end, Mr Parr threw up his hands in near despair.

  ‘Miss Lomas, you are far too conscientious. There is no need to be so exact. All that really matters is that you come up with a final figure which, while not necessarily larger than the amount expended over the years, will at least not be smaller. Keep in mind the possible value I have put on this place, which I will tell you in confidence later, and aim at producing a figure which will approximate to the difference between that value and the amount of the mortgage we’ll be getting Christy to sign with which I will also see you are acquainted. You’ll have to make a guess at some of your figures but make a good guess. Then he, who was always so formal, winked at her. ‘Don’t forget it’s a Mock Auction,’ he said, and he winked a second time.

  It was not however until after she had consulted her cookery books and pondered what she felt to be analogous instances of mock-cream and mock-turtle that Miss Lomas got any real grasp of what might be meant by mock auction. And Christy? Did he know what was afoot, she wondered. He certainly gave no sign of knowing. But then George might not have intended telling him anything until the last minute. The fellow was so used to being ordered around, told to do this and told to do that, to run here and run there, to open gates and shut gates, to chase sheep and count cattle, he’d probably sign on the dotted line without raising a single query. He was however notably more silent than usual. On the other hand, the servant girl of the moment, was full of gab. She could talk of nothing else but the auction. And on the eve of the Big Day when unfortunately Miss Lomas was forced to keep her until late in the night to help pluck and stuff a few extra fowl that she had decided at the last minute might be necessary, she found her downright impertinent.

  ‘It’s only a mug’s game, being too particular,’ said the slut when Miss Lomas insisted on the pin feathers being singed. ‘There may be the crowd of all times here tomorrow but it won’t be for what they’ll get to eat they’ll be coming.’

  Miss Lomas was outraged. ‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ she said, ‘Although I agree that there may be a large crowd of viewers, but there are not many people hereabouts with money enough to bid for Brook Farm.’

  ‘Isn’t that what I was trying to tell you,’ the girl said. ‘It won’t be only bidders will be here. There’ll be gawkers galore as well.’

  Miss Lomas looked in some dismay at the load of food on the kitchen table, but she quickly recovered her calm. ‘If that is so those people won’t be brash enough to come up to the house,’ she said. ‘The auction will be held down in the yard, you know.’ All the same her heart sank. Privately, she too, was coming to the conclusion that there could be a lot of people who’d come out of sheer curiosity. People might guess that George would have a trick card to play, something up his sleeve. She realised suddenly that very few people had come to view the place. That was odd. They had all been strangers to her too, but of course they could have been stooges dredged up in the town by Parr. Certainly few of them had walked the land, or not in earnest, and none of them had asked to inspect the house. Perhaps she had prepared too much food? She belatedly remembered that George had stipulated that only the principals were to receive hospitality. All of a sudden she felt uncertain and out of her depth. So late that night when she was alone in the parlour and George called out to Brook Farm she was exceedingly glad to see him.

  ‘You’re worrying unduly I tell you,’ he said. ‘What does one duck or one goose too many matter at a time like this? If you are thinking of Christy’s relatives. Those interlopers won’t darken the door, when they discover they’ve been outwitted. Our food would stick in their gullets this time. They’ll be a sorry breed that ever questioned my honesty. That reminds me. Have you anything to add to that list of expenses you gave me? I hope nothing was omitted. If so it can be added in pen and ink. Think hard! Meals for drovers? Did you, for instance, think of that item?

  ‘The drovers never got more than a bite in the kitchen with the servant girl, a few odds and ends that would otherwise be thrown out,’ Miss Lomas said wearily.

  ‘No matter!’ said George. ‘Put down a figure for those meals. We have to have entries for everything we can rake up. It is essential that Christy’s immediate profit on the place will be as hollow as a blown egg. I don’t think you’ve caught on to our plan at all.’ It was as near as George had ever gone to being cross with her and Miss Lomas got flustered.

  ‘Maybe I ought to make out a new list,’ she said although she couldn’t help glancing at the clock.

  ‘Do so by all means if you think you can improve on the total,’ George said. ‘There’s one point I ought to have stressed, which is that Parr will see to it that you will get away with anything you put down.’ But again, as always, his innate goodness came to the fore. ‘Look here, it’s getting late and I can see you’re tired. Don’t bother with a new list. The first one will serve well enough. But there is one thing I must ask you. Have you given any consideration to the final item, the one you left blank?

  Miss Lomas had not forgotten that she’d left a blank. She had done so deliberately. She simply could not believe that George would press her on that sore point. Reaching out to him with her two hands, her eyes appealed to him for understanding of her feelings.

  ‘N
o salary I could possibly invent would come anywhere near to equalling what I got out of Brook Farm over all those years,’ she cried. ‘Put down whatever figure you yourself think proper.’

  ‘Ah,’ said George. ‘Are you sure about that?’ Miss Lomas nodded vigorously. ‘So you did get the idea?’ George said with a quizzical smile. He was touched. ‘Tell me, Miss Lomas, when you were a child, did you ever play a game, a game that began by asking the other player to think of a number and then …’

  ‘Then double it?’ Miss Lomas asked timidly.

  ‘Yes, Yes and add 5,’ George prompted.

  ‘And then double that again?’ Miss Lomas had got the hang of it.

  George was so pleased he slapped his thigh the way he did when he’d tell her he’d bought a herd of cattle for next to nothing.

  ‘You’ve got the idea, alright,’ he said. Then producing her original list from his pocket, now neatly typed, he scribbled a figure in the blank space. ‘Sign this,’ he said handing the list to her. ‘And just in case the solicitors on the other side should be foolish enough to contest it, you might as well put your initials at the end of each page.’

  Partly in embarrassment and partly in jollity, Miss Lomas half-averted her eyes as she complied. She was about to hand it back to him when George put his finger on one particular line. ‘Just initial that item he added casually.’

  With a flourish Miss Lomas put her initial everywhere George told her, but again took care not to look at the figure entered as her supposed salary. She didn’t expect George to notice her squeamishness but she was pleased to see he was aware of it.

  ‘You are worth your weight in gold, Miss Lomas,’ he said solemnly. ‘You have taken good care of Brook Farm all through the years. God grant it will take care of you too, to the end.’

  Miss Lomas felt like kissing his hand.

  *

  Next day, on the spur of the moment, Miss Lomas decided not to show herself in the yard at all.

  ‘It was a great mistake to hold the auction here at all,’ she said to the servant girl. ‘It should have been held at Garretstown House, or better still in the auctioneer’s office.’ It upset her to see people streaming in the gate and slouching around the yard. It was also extremely difficult to keep the servant girl from running in and out between the house and the yard.

  By eleven o’clock a tidy knot of people had gathered around the farm cart on which the auctioneer would stand when he proceeded to dispose of the farm. This casual group was disposed to be talkative, until shortly before noon a silence fell when there was a stir in the crowd and Miss Lomas saw that Christy had arrived back, accompanied by a mob of relatives. But when the auctioneer, who arrived almost at the same time, took up his stand on the cart, to her relief she saw that at a sign from George, Christy broke away from his companions and took up his stand in front of the cart. She breathed a great sigh of relief. She concluded that all would be well. Then a new annoyance presented itself. The servant girl had escaped her again and, most unsuitably, wormed her way through the crowd to Christy’s side. There was no calling her back.

  On the stroke of noon the auctioneer gave the dash-board of the cart a crack of his stick, and a few people who had been skulking in the sheds and hay barn came sheepishly out. Others, who stayed in the shelter of the outhouses, only craned their necks forward like ganders. Then just as the auctioneer was about to open his mouth, an old clucking hen that was roosting in the haggard flew down into the crowd.

  Miss Lomas gasped. Mercifully, the servant girl dived on it, and clapt it up in her apron. How was it Christy hadn’t the wits to do anything about it? She turned back to attend to a few last-minute preparations. If the meal was to be ready on time she herself had better start frying the liver and kidneys that were to embellish the fowl.

  It seemed only a minute later that the girl came running back into the kitchen.

  ‘It’s not over, is it?’ cried Miss Lomas.

  ‘All but the cheering,’ said the girl with a laugh. Miss Lomas didn’t know what she meant, but she handed over the frying pan.

  ‘Don’t forget the rule I gave you. Kidney well done, liver less so!’ But her mind was not on the meal. ‘What did you do with that old hen when you were coming in? You didn’t let it go again?’

  ‘Oh no, miss,’ said the girl. ‘I gave her to Christy to hold.’

  To Christy? And of course he took it. A fine figure he’d cut with the old clucking hen under his arm when the auctioneer would call him up to sign the papers. Ah well. Perhaps it would further Parr’s plan to have the fellow shown up for a gom. It would let people see that George Garret was able for all mean-minded connivers. Hearing voices approaching the house, she ran to open the door to them.

  There were only three people: George, Mr Parr and Christy. Apparently, the auctioneer and his clerk had been let take themselves off.

  ‘Well, I’m glad that’s over,’ George said, and he reached for the decanter. ‘We must give this man a drink, Miss Lomas,’ he said, nodding at Parr. ‘He’s not used to being out in the open air.’ He filled out a good stiff drink for himself too. He looked as if he needed it.

  ‘Well! How did it go?’ Miss Lomas asked anxiously looking from one to the other of them, her glance resting last, but longest on Christy, who had slunk in last. Prompted perhaps by something in Miss Lomas’s face, George too turned around and looked at him.

  ‘Liven up there Christy,’ he said, and he gave him a clap on the back that nearly jolted the teeth out of his head. ‘You’re a man of property now, the owner of a big farm with nothing to do for the rest of your life only scratch around for the money to pay for it.’ Turning to Parr, he laughed. ‘Well, Parr? We foxed them nicely, didn’t we? Did you see their faces? They never knew Christy here was such a man of substance.’ After he let himself down into the big mahogany carver at the head of the table, he made as if to rise again. ‘Excuse me Christy, it’s you ought to be at the head of the table now,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, leave him alone!’ said Miss Lomas unexpectedly. ‘There’s no use making any more game of him than is needed.’ She looked at the poor fellow and not for the first time she wondered if there was a ton of him in it at all. It was impossible to know what he thought or felt.

  ‘By the way, we mustn’t forget to have him sign the mortgage, George,’ said Parr, as if Christy wasn’t present at all.

  George paused with a forkful of kidney half-way to his mouth. ‘It wouldn’t do to forget that, would it?’ he said but he laughed. ‘Do you know something. If I was to drop down dead this minute, like my poor brother, Joss, I’d rather see Christy here,’ he pointed at him with his fork, ‘I’d rather see Christy here walking off with the place than have those mangy relatives of his rob him of a penny.’ Abandoning his jocose manner then, he turned solemnly to the solicitor. ‘Weren’t they the fools to stand out against me?’ he said, but before Mr Parr had time to answer, George threw a glance at the clock and snapped his fingers. ‘I nearly forgot. There are cattle coming from Dublin this morning. They were to be at the station before noon. Christy! Quick! Eat up and off with you over the fields. I’ve arranged for a drover to come from Dublin with them, but he’ll need help.’ It was the sort of job Christy always got, but Miss Lomas was surprised at his being given such a menial job today of all days. Christy too seemed stunned at the order. He got to his feet more sluggishly than usual. ‘Don’t forget it’s your own property you’re looking after now!’ George called after him, winking openly at the others.

  It was Miss Lomas who remembered the mortgage. ‘He didn’t sign it,’ she cried, and she got to her feet with such haste that her chair over-turned as she ran and banged on the window-pane. Mr Parr too sprang to his feet.

  ‘Well, well,’ said George, ‘you must both of you have a very poor expectation of my longevity.’ He wasn’t in the least worried.

 
‘Tut-Tut,’ said Mr Parr. ‘These things are a matter of routine.’

  Miss Lomas however had got too much of a fright to be politic.

  ‘Think of poor Joss,’ she admonished. ‘Think of how quick he went!’

  Sobered, George himself stood up. ‘I suppose we’d better get him to sign it.’ Picking up a big cut glass ink stand and a pen, he followed Mr Parr, who was in the hall getting into his overcoat unaided.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t wait for coffee?’ Miss Lomas asked.

  George however was tapping the face of the clock. ‘Is that clock fast?’ he asked, as if she had detained him long enough already. A few minutes later the cob was trotting down between the clipped laurels of the drive and out through the gates on to the road where it was soon hidden by low branches of chestnut and sycamore in young, sweet leaf.

  Miss Lomas listened till the last clip-clop of hooves died on the air. She had the oddest notion that there would not be many more big spreads to prepare at Brook Farm. Then she walked down the drive and closed the gates. But as she slammed them shut, and pushed the iron bolt down into the spud-stone, she felt a certain sense of security and as she walked back she looked appraisingly at the old house with its many-paned windows, one to the right being the front window of her own little bedroom, a room that was in fact the largest in the house, but when speaking of it, she used the diminutive from a feeling of homeliness. It was the same feeling of homeliness and love that often made her refer to the whole house as a little treasure.

  What a pity the men had to rush away, she thought. This was the time they would pull their chairs over to the fire to let the food settle on their stomachs. Today, since there was no sense in wasting a good fire, she sat herself down in one of the big plush armchairs and in a second she had fallen asleep. She did not wake until tea time when the maid came in, and poked the fire, splashing the fire-light momentarily around the room. ‘Is Christy not back yet?’ she asked, but immediately she regretted having spoken. It was not customary for her to comment on either his goings or his comings. Changes there might be in the days to follow but she was convinced there would be no change in her attitude to him. She affected a light laugh. ‘He must be worn out,’ she said, ‘signing himself into a big farm one minute and signing himself out of it the next!’