Woman of the House (12 page)

She was glad to arrive at Sarah’s gate and she hoped that she would be at home. Relieved to find the front door open, Kate stepped into the sunlit hall that smelt of Mansions floor polish. The door into the kitchen was open and Sarah was sitting at the table inside the window reading the paper.

“You had no idea about this before it appeared here?” she asked, tapping the
Eagle
, and when Kate shook her head she nodded.

“Jack and I thought so last night,” she said. “I went over to him when I read it because I was afraid of what the shock would do to him.”

“How was he?” Kate asked anxiously.

“Knocked sideways,” Sarah said, shaking her head.
“What is that woman thinking of at all? I suppose she’s still in shock. I always tell people to make no big decision for two years after a bereavement because they’re not in control of their full faculties. That’s after an ordinary death, if there is such a thing. Sure, what’s happened down there would blow the head off you.”

“There will be no changing her mind,” Kate told her quietly.

“Don’t I know,” Sarah agreed; “always was as stubborn as a mule, like her father before her. But he’d never sell land. Martha was always a strange one, but then so is Mark, but he brought all the gentility of Agnes, whereas she has all the hardness of the Lehanes in her.

“Sarah,” Kate interrupted her flow, “I want to discuss something else with you.”

“Something else! Kate, girl, I thought you would have nothing on your mind today only Mossgrove. Jack and myself talked ourselves hoarse last night, for all the good that it did us. But I felt that Jack needed someone to talk it out with him.”

“You were right, Sarah, as usual, and I’d have called to him just now but there is something that I must sort out first.”

She sat on a chair next to Sarah and looked out the low window into her garden that was overflowing with flowers, vegetables and scratching hens. The garden is like herself, Kate thought, brimming with life and energy. It seemed a shame to blight the vibrant scene with her dark sketch, but she opened her bag and reluctantly drew it out and placed it on the table before Sarah. There was no reaction of surprise, only a narrowing of the eyes.

“So, he’s at it again,” she said bitterly.

“How do you mean, again?” Kate asked in astonishment.

“There was an older girl there – Mary,” Sarah said.

“That’s right,” Kate said, “she went to Dublin to an aunt.”

“Ever wonder why?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, God,” Kate looked at Sarah in horrified realisation.

“That’s right.”

“But how did you find out?”

“The old woman,” Sarah said. “And she helped to get her out as well.”

“What about the mother?”

“Oh, Biddy,” Sarah said dismissively; “useless – she’s scared stiff of him.”

“And the grandmother?” Kate asked.

“You couldn’t frighten that one,” Sarah declared.

“Wonder she didn’t do something this time.”

“Probably didn’t know,” Sarah said thoughtfully; “might have only started since she cut her leg and wasn’t able to get around.”

“So she’s my best bet?”

“That’s right, but let me think this out carefully and figure out the best way to go about things.”

Kate sat quietly while Sarah did her thinking. Outside the window a pair of blackbirds darted back and forth beside the hedge, occasionally coming to a standstill with heads alert for any intrusion into their private corner. Nobody invaded their territory, so they continued their busy pecking, stopping now and then to make short swift flights into the hedge. Are they nesting? she wondered.

“Now, I think that this is the best way to do it,” Sarah broke the silence. “No direct accusations or you’ll be thrown out and they’ll all clam up. Suggest that Kitty’s bed
be moved into the grandmother’s room to keep an eye on the old lady. The old lady will know straight away what’s going on, so she’ll go along with it. That keeps Kitty safe for the present and gives us breathing space. Now, the old lady writes to Mary in Dublin, so I’ll tell Joe in the post office to watch out for a letter and to copy the address. He might even have it in his head. Joe has done things like that for me before and no one was any the wiser. Then we’ll take it from there.”

Kate looked at her in admiration. This little woman with her small round face and soft clear skin probably knew most of what went on behind the closed doors of the parish but kept it all to herself.

“Thanks, Sarah,” she said, getting to her feet. “Wish me luck.”

“You’ll be grand,” Sarah told her; “just be fine and cool and remember that you have right on your side. That’s always a help.” And dipping her fingers into the holy water font hanging beside the front door, she gave Kate a good sprinkle.

As she cycled into Conways’ yard the dogs came barking from all directions and Matt Conway appeared immediately with a triumphant leer on his face.

“So the Phelans are selling Mossgrove,” he said, “and we’ll be the highest bidders.”

“How can you be so sure?” Kate asked.

“No matter what it goes to, we’ll be there, because Conway money will come from America for this one,” he gloated.

“We’ll see,” Kate said evenly and kept walking towards the front door.

“Oh, we’ll see all right,” he sneered; “we Conways have waited along time for this day.”

Kate did not rise to his baiting but opened the front door and went into the kitchen where Biddy Conway, with her thin red face and short hair pinned with a steel clip behind her ears, regarded her suspiciously. On previous calls Kate had attempted to make conversation with Biddy but had failed, so now she no longer tried. She went straight down to the grandmother’s room.

“Ha, ha,” the old lady greeted her, “so she’s selling ye out. Ye got a cuckoo in the nest, as long as ye ran.”

“Let’s see that leg,” Kate instructed, turning back the bedclothes and unwrapping the bandages.

“She was always an odd one: good-looking but odd,” the old lady continued. “I knew when she got her claws into young Ned that he didn’t stand a chance. Now she’s going to have her own back.”

“How do you mean, her own back?” Kate demanded.

“Odd ones like her always carry a grudge: they think that everyone is against them, and she always thought that ye had no time for her, so now she’s going to get the better of ye.”

“That’s nonsense,” Kate protested.

“Mark my words, my girl, but I’m right, and you’ll find it out in due course,” the old lady asserted nodding her head.

During her regular visits over the previous weeks Kate had developed a certain respect for the old lady. She was canny and calculating and tough as old leather, but she was a good patient and not a complainer. When she had the fresh bandage in place she stood over the old woman in the bed and looked down at her.

“I want you to do something for me,” Kate told her.

“Why should I do anything for you?” she demanded.

“Because it’s in your own interest. I want to bring Kitty’s bed in here to your room.”

The old lady went motionless in the bed and her piggy blue eyes narrowed in her flat flabby face.

“Why?” she rasped.

“Because if you wanted a drink or anything at night she could get it for you,” Kate said casually, but their eyes locked and both of them understood exactly what was at stake.

“I’ll get the boys to do it later on,” the old lady said.

“We’ll do it now,” Kate told her decisively. “It’s Saturday, so the boys are at home.”

“Please yourself,” the old lady agreed.

She went down into the kitchen where Biddy was clattering around in a pair of boots that were too big for her, and when she was asked about the whereabouts of the two boys, she pointed to the back door.

“I want to shift Kitty’s bed into her grandmother’s room so that she will be there at night if the old lady should want something,” Kate told her, and knew by her furtive look that she knew the real reason for the move. She put her head out the back and yelled at the boys to come in. They came, big, beefy boys with close-cropped black hair and thick heavy Conway jaws, with puzzled looks on their faces. Small dainty Kitty with her red hair and pretty face was a total contrast to her brothers. They looked at Kate with mute, expressionless faces, but when she explained to them what she wanted done they got to work without question. In a few minutes they had the iron bed taken asunder and shifted across the kitchen into their grandmother’s room.
Looking in the doorway, Kate recognised Kitty’s room from Mark’s drawing and felt chilled.

Just as they had the bed reassembled Kitty came in the back door dragging a dog behind her and looked uneasily at Kate. “Where’s my bed gone?” she asked in surprise as she looked in through the open doorway at the empty room.

“We’ve moved it into Nana’s room,” Rory, the biggest of the two boys told her, “’cause Nurse Phelan wants somebody with her at night.”

Kate watched Kitty’s face closely and saw a fleeting look of surprise wiped out by an overwhelming wave of sheer relief. She’s off the hook, Kate thought, the poor little mite. Feeling Biddy’s eyes on her, she looked across the kitchen and knew that Biddy too was aware of her daughter’s relief. What a mess, she thought, feeling suddenly angry, but Sarah’s words of warning came back to her.
If
you
get
yourself
kicked
out
you’ll
be
no
help
to
Kitty.
So she smiled at Kitty and told her, “Tidy up your bed, now, and look after Nana for me, and I’ll be back next week.”

When she went back out into the yard Matt Conway was waiting for her. “What kept you so long?” he demanded.

“We were moving Kitty’s bed into her grandmother’s room,” she told him, feeling a glow of satisfaction when she saw the unease in his eyes. She let the silence hang between them and looked him in the eye until he dropped his glance. He knows now, she thought, that I know. Then she said casually, “She needs somebody to be with her at night.” And getting on her bike she cycled out of the yard without a backward glance.

O
N THE WAY
home Kate decided that she would call to see Mark to tell him that she had taken things in hand. He had been deeply distressed last night and she did not want him to be worrying needlessly.

Everything about Lehanes’ house made it different from their neighbours because Agnes had allowed Mark’s flair for colour run riot. He had painted the long, low, thatched house a blazing yellow with a bright red door, and as she walked up the short path it peeped out at her through overgrown greenery like a mischievous child.

Mark must have seen her coming and he whipped open the door with a welcoming smile. His clothes always intrigued Kate because they looked as if they had been knitted on him. Agnes loved knitting, and his long, muted-coloured sweaters, threadbare and worn, poured down to his knees. She had often smiled to hear Agnes complain that once he got into a sweater she could not get him out
of it until it almost fell apart. His trousers suffered the same fate because they were soft and bleached from over-washing and they skirted his long legs down over soft leather boots. The overall impression was in total contrast to the house because Mark himself looked like a grey shadow.

Now his warm brown eyes beamed out at her from the midst of soft, flowing, dishevelled hair and put her in mind of a wren peering out of its all-encircling nest.

“Kate, come in,” he smiled in welcome, opening the door wide so that she stepped straight into the kitchen.

“I can’t stay a minute,” she told him, “but I thought that I’d let you know that I’m working on that problem and things are o.k. now.”

“That’s a relief,” he sighed. “Since it happened I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything. It’s blocked off all my thinking.”

“Well, that’s why I called,” she told him, taking his hands and looking up at him. “I’ve taken steps to keep Kitty safe, so you have no need to worry. You can go back to your own doings and forget about it.” Then she smiled up at him and said admiringly, “Mark, you’re like a tall, willowy tree.”

“And you, Kate,” he replied, “are like a small, dark, thorny, well-rooted bush that could not be blown over no matter what way the wind blew. A big storm could topple me!”

“I’m not sure, Mark,” she laughed, “whether that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“It’s a compliment, Kate,” he assured her, putting his arms around her and drawing her close to him. “There is something so solid and sane about you, Kate, and you make me feel good about myself, whereas some people around here make me feel crazy.”

“People always feel threatened by things that they cannot understand,” she told him gently; then, putting her nose against his sweater, she sniffed and said, “You smell of Lux flakes.”

“Kate, there is no romance in your soul!” Holding her back from him and laughing down at her, he asked, “Have you no time for tea?”

“No,” she answered as she looked around. “Where’s Agnes?”

“Gone over to Mossgrove,” he told her ruefully. “She’s dreadfully upset by the sale. She thinks that she can change Martha’s mind, but of course she can’t.”

“Poor Agnes,” Kate sighed, “I suppose she’s worried about the future of the children too.”

“What about this new school?” Mark asked. “That would be a great help to them if it came.”

“Hopefully it will work out. Did you ever regret, Mark, that it was not there in your time?” she asked.

“Maybe I did, because there were so many things that I wanted to find out about. But then Tady Mikey came along and taught me to play, and that was the first ray of light. But it was the Miss Jacksons who really opened doors for me. When they took me on their trips they pretended that it was to help with their luggage, but of course that was only to make me feel good. They changed my life. Then, of course, I had Ned, who was always there for me if the other fellows tried to rough me up.”

“You were good friends even going to school,” Kate said.

“I sometimes think that I was the one who brought himself and Martha together, because he used to spend so much time here with me. Looking at how things are turning out, I think that I did him no favours,” he said ruefully.

“Mark, will you stop it,” Kate demanded. “Ned wouldn’t have married Martha if he had not wanted to. Men were always fascinated by Martha because she was so lovely, and when Ned married he was the envy of every man in the parish.”

“They didn’t have to live with her,” Mark said simply.

“She loved Ned a lot.”

“I suppose so,” he agreed, “but I hated it when she was not kind to Nellie.”

“How did you know about that?” Kate asked in surprise.

“Ned and I discussed it often.”

“Did you really? Ned never discussed it with me, or with Jack either.”

“That was because he felt so guilty; he felt he’d let you and Jack down,” he told her quietly.

“Oh, I never knew that,” Kate said sadly. “Poor Ned, he was caught in the middle.”

“He loved Martha but he wasn’t blind to her faults, and the fact that I was her brother made it possible for him to talk with me about it He didn’t feel disloyal discussing it with me. Ned had a strong sense of loyalty but he had a stronger sense of justice, and he felt that Nellie was being wronged, which she was.”

“She was indeed,” Kate agreed, “but because of her sense of loyalty to Ned she never discussed it with me. I knew what was going on and I would have tackled Martha myself, but she would have taken it out on Ned and I didn’t want to make things difficult for him. Family relationships are something else, aren’t they?”

“That’s for sure,” Mark agreed. “She’s my sister, but I could never understand her. She always thought that other people had it better than her.”

Kate thought of old Molly Conway and wondered if maybe indeed she had Martha read right. But she decided that they could spend the day analysing Martha and be none the wiser, so she smiled at Mark and said, “Now, you’re not to replace one problem with another. You can do nothing about Martha and Mossgrove, so forget about it. You have such wonderful gifts, Mark, that you owe it to yourself, and indeed to us less talented mortals, to follow your star, and that’s the thorny bush advising you now.”

“Right, mam,” Mark said in mock submission, giving her a military salute.

“Well, I’m off,” she told him. “And tell Agnes not to worry, it’s bad for her asthma.”

“Right, nurse,” he smiled.

As she cycled along the road she thought back over her conversation with Mark. She was glad that Ned had discussed the problem of Martha and Nellie with him. She was very fond of Mark and at one stage when she was younger, before David came on the scene, she had imagined herself in love with him, but she had got over that phase and he had become a second brother in her life.

When she reached Sarah’s cottage she was standing at the gate waiting for her.

“Well, how did you get on?” she asked anxiously.

“Did just as you said,” Kate told her, getting off her bike, “and I think that it worked well.”

“Thank God,” Sarah said fervently. “At least we are all right for another while. I’ve been thinking since that it might be no harm to mention this to Fr Brady.”

“Why so?” Kate asked in surprise.

“Well, he’s fairly sound and he’s pretty tuned in to what’s going on around, and sometimes it’s no harm to have a few reliable people in the know, because you’d never be sure when you’d want a bit of a back up.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Kate agreed, “and I’ll be meeting him one of these nights about the new school.”

“I heard rumours about that,” Sarah said. “How far has it gone?”

“Not very far really,” Kate told her. “David is waiting to hear from the Miss Jacksons’ nephew to know if he would rent the old house in the village.”

“Well, it would be better if the nephew did something with that house, because it’s no good having it standing there idle,” Sarah said.

“Hopefully he’ll think of it like that as well,” Kate said, “but apart from that there is a problem with the P.P.”

“What’s the problem with him?” Sarah asked in surprise.

“Well, apparently there was an old parochial agreement with the nuns over in Ross that there would be no school opened in the parish in opposition to their commercial school over there.”

“But that’s daft,” Sarah protested.

“I know,” Kate agreed, “but Sarah, I sometimes think that we’re all half daft.”

“Speak for yourself, my girl,” Sarah told her briskly, and they both smiled.

“But the P.P. might use that agreement as an excuse because, as you know yourself, the Doc and himself had a bit of a run-in after Joan’s funeral, so the Twomeys are not exactly his favourite parishioners.”

“You had better watch yourself as well, if you have good-looking men calling late at night,” Sarah teased.

“Aha, you were gossiping with Julia!” Kate smiled. “The Doc was saying that she was probably on duty that night.”

“And what about handsome young David on Thursday night,” Sarah smiled.

“Hope to God that she was asleep at about three o’clock this morning when Mark called.”

“Oh, I’ll hear it if she wasn’t.”

“How do you hear everything and tell people nothing?” Kate asked curiously.

“The easiest thing in the world,” Sarah told her, “because most people are only interested in the sounds of their own voices.”

“Probably most voices in the parish are talking about the sale of Mossgrove today,” Kate said regretfully.

“More than likely,” Sarah agreed, “but I haven’t been to the village yet, so I haven’t been in the way of meeting people to talk about it.”

“Typical of Martha not to tell anybody, isn’t it?” Kate asked. “She is so secretive.”

“Maybe we should have smelt a rat when she went off in the pony and trap on Monday and was missing for most of the day,” Sarah decided.

“Was she?” Kate asked with interest. “I didn’t know that. But then I didn’t meet Jack during the week.”

“He told me last night,” Sarah told her. “He said that she went away early in the day and was not back until evening. She probably went over to Ross and put the ad into the office of the
Eagle
herself.”

“We always gave any ad for the
Eagle
to Joe in the post office,” Kate said, “but she was probably afraid that Joe would say something to myself or Jack.”

“He probably would have, too. Like most people around here he would hate to see Mossgrove go out of the Phelan name,” Sarah said, then continued thoughtfully: “Strange, you know, though I never owned land myself apart from this acre, I still like to see the farms remain in the same families. It gives a sense of stability to the whole community. They’re like trees that are allowed to reach maturity and to put down deep roots in the one place.”

“Well, if this goes ahead the Phelan tree in Mossgrove is about to be cut down and a new Conway tree will be planted in there,” Kate said bitterly.

“I was thinking that the Conways would be the front runners,” Sarah said. “There’s one of Matt’s brothers in the buildings in England and doing well, and another ranching in America. Strange thing about the Conways, when they got out of that hole over there they seemed to blossom.”

“Pity that Matt Conway did not go away and blossom somewhere else.”

“He’s about the worst of them.”

“People don’t come much worse than that creep,” Kate said with venom, “and to think that he might actually own our house makes my skin crawl. If I went down to Mossgrove now I’d be afraid that I’d strangle Martha with my bare hands.”

“It isn’t sold yet,” Sarah told her, “I’ve seen Mossgrove sail close to the wind before, but it got back on course again.”

“But if they had sold then it would have been because they had no option, but now it’s being done by choice. It’s a betrayal!”

“I can understand how you feel,” Sarah said comfortingly. “Jack was saying the same thing last night”

“Poor Sarah,” Kate said bleakly, “we’re all crying on your shoulder.”

“Ah well, that’s what I’m here for. Nellie and I often talked ourselves out of a tight corner together. She helped me and I helped her when times were tough. When all mine were small I hadn’t much to put in the wind either, and my fellow liked his drop as well. Now that he’s dead and all my crowd are working, I have it easier than I ever had it. It would be nicer if they were not all in England and America, but what else was there for them only the boat?”

“That’s why this school is so important,” Kate declared vehemently; “it would give them all a better chance, even if they still had to emigrate.”

“I’d be very surprised if it didn’t get going in spite of whatever problem there is about parochial agreements. The people here would only oppose the clergy for one reason, and that would be the future of their children, and the old P.P. knows that. I’d say that he won’t push it that far.”

“Well, Sarah,” Kate said thoughtfully, “we’ll find out over the next few weeks.”

“He has someone to answer to too, you know,” Sarah remarked enigmatically. “Will you be calling to see Jack?”

“Will you drop over to him when he comes up and tell him that I’ll call back tonight to talk things over.”

“I’ll do that,” Sarah told her.

“The other thing that is worrying me is Nora and Peter,” Kate said. “Surely Martha will tell them before going to mass tomorrow because someone might say it to them. But whatever about tomorrow, they’ll definitely have to know before Monday because the Conways will be bursting to ram it down their throats.”

“Jack will know whether she told them or not.”

“That’s right,” Kate said, getting on her bike, “and Sarah, will you say a prayer that I won’t lose my cool and tear the head off Martha when I go to Mossgrove?”

Though she said it jokingly they both knew that she was half serious. Jack and the children would look to her to try to talk Martha out of her intention. But as Mark, who should know better than anyone, had so wisely remarked, that was not possible.

As she cycled along the road the whole problem of Mossgrove that she had pushed to the back of her mind returned like a reinforced black cloud. When she came to the entrance to the farm she leaned her bike against the stony ditch of Jack’s cottage and climbed up on to the top of the gate. She sat there and looked down over the fields of Mossgrove. The big well field just inside the gate lay with its brown ploughed bosom turned up to the warm spring sun. She closed her eyes and could visualise it full of waving wheat, barley and oats, and see the pale shades of cream and yellow stretching away across the wide field, different-shaped heads waving in the breeze. She could hear Ned’s voice as he looked at the barley with its bearded heads.