Woman of the House (21 page)

“This is great,” said Nora. “I love when people make speeches. Will you be as good as Jack, Aunty Kate?”

“Couldn’t be as good as Jack,” Kate ruffled her hair; “he was on a runner.”

“Norry, will you ever shut up and let Aunty Kate make her announcement,” Peter said.

She could see Martha watching her. Bet she’s worried now, Kate thought.

“This has to do with Mark,” she began and saw a look of relief pass over Martha’s face. “We all know that Mark has been turning out wonderful pictures for years. The problem was that there was nobody to appreciate them properly. Well, all that is about to change.”

“Kate, what are you talking about?” Mark demanded.

“All will be revealed in due course. You all know that there is a new school coming to Kilmeen and that it will be in the Miss Jacksons’ old house. Well, their grandnephew in America is taking a great interest in it. He feels that there is no encouragement for the arts in Kilmeen, and how right he is. He wants works of art to hang on the walls to give the children an appreciation of such things. And guess who is going to do the pictures?” She paused for effect, looking around at the expectant faces. “Our Mark!”

“Where did all this come from?” Mark asked, a look of astonishment on his face.

“From old Mr Hobbs, and you are to take over some of your paintings for his approval during the week, but that is only a matter of form because they are the best there is.”

“But this is fantastic,” Mark breathed. “An opportunity to hang my pictures.”

“Yes, and when Rodney Jackson sees your pictures, Mark, it’s going to open doors for you.”

“I remember him coming once when I was a young fellow to visit his aunts,” Mark said.

“Old Hobbs said that he came, but I can’t remember him at all,” Kate said.

“Ah, you were too young,” Mark laughed; “I’ve a few years on you.”

“This is great news,” Agnes broke in. “At least now, Mark, you’ll get paid for all your hours of work.”

“Good man, Mark,” Jack proclaimed; “it was only a matter of time before you were valued. Not that I know anything about paintings myself, now, but Kate was always telling me that you were a genius and that we were all too stupid to appreciate you.”

“Ah, Jack,” she protested, “I didn’t put it quite like that.”

“No,” he agreed, “but that was the truth anyway, even if you were too polite to say so.”

“So your pictures will be hanging in the new school, Mark,” Davy said in an impressed voice; “that will be something!”

“I’ll tell everybody that you are my uncle,” Nora declared. “I can’t wait to go to the new school.”

“They’ll all be all right kind of pictures?” Peter asked in a worried voice.

“Oh no,” Nora told him in a mocking tone, “they’ll be terrible! Don’t be stupid, Peter, Uncle Mark only paints beautiful pictures, and if the Conways say anything against them you are to fight them with Jeremy Nolan.”

“What’s all this about?” Mark protested. “Talk of fights, and nobody has said a word against them yet.”

“Well, the Conways are bound to be against them, because they are against everything,” she said, adding loyally, “except Kitty.”

“When were you over with Mr Hobbs?” Martha asked casually.

“Yesterday,” Kate told her briefly. “Isn’t it great news about Mark?”

“We’ll have to see how it all turns out before we start getting carried away,” she said.

“Oh, the sky is the limit now,” Kate assured her airily. “With talent like Mark’s all he needed was the opening, and this is it.”

“We’ll wait and see,” said Martha coolly.

“Well, this will never keep white stockings on the missus, as the old man used to say,” Jack announced. “So Davy, you and I had better get going and milk the cows.”

“Davy and I will do them, Jack,” Peter told him, rising from the table. “You’re too dressed up to go milking, and as well as that you can’t see too straight after that stuff you’re after drinking.”

“I could walk a straight line with the best of them,” Jack protested, “but if you’re generous enough to offer, I’ll be generous enough to accept and go home early and give Toby a surprise.”

“I’ll walk up the boreen with you,” Mark told him, and the four of them trooped out of the room

“Isn’t it nice when the men are gone?” Nora observed as they closed the door behind them. “Now it’s only us.” And she looked around from Martha to Agnes and Kate.

“The women are left to do the washing as usual,” Agnes smiled, “but who cares, because after all the good news we’ve had today I could wash up for a week.”

“Things are coming together at last,” Kate agreed.

“I’m so pleased for Mark,” Agnes said with fervour.

“So am I,” Martha said.

“Why didn’t you say so when he was here?” Agnes asked her.

“That’s not my way.”

Later, as Kate walked up the boreen she thought over the day that was gone. Martha did not know if she knew about the will or not, and it was probably the best way to leave things. All her mother had wanted was for Mossgrove to be safe. Peter must never know that Martha could not sell Mossgrove. But it was amazing that Nellie had not told Jack about the will.

When she reached his cottage Jack was waiting for her at the gate.

“Come in, Kate,” he invited, “and we’ll have a chat. I’ll find it hard to sleep tonight after all this excitement, but if we talk it over I might calm down a bit.”

“It’s great news, isn’t it,” she said when they were seated with Toby and Maggie by the fire.

“You knew, Kate, didn’t you, before she said anything?” Jack asked quietly.

“What makes you say that?”

“I was watching your face,” he told her, “and you were not in the least bit surprised when Martha told us.”

“You’re a wily old devil, Jack,” she smiled.

“The mind is a strange thing,” Jack mused, “but when Martha told me yesterday evening about the special tea it set me thinking. I knew that it could only mean that she had changed her mind, and there had to be a very good reason. Then I remembered something that Nellie had said years ago about taking steps to protect Mossgrove.”

“You forgot all about it in the mean time?” Kate asked.

“I didn’t understand what she meant; I asked her, but she wouldn’t explain. It was one thing she kept private from me, and I put it out of my mind.”

“Until yesterday.”

“Until yesterday.”

“It was all a long time ago,” said Kate.

“Yea! But it was so important, and that was why she told me. She had something in the will, hadn’t she?”

“That’s right. She made it so that Mossgrove could not be sold without my permission. But we’ll never tell anyone, Jack, why Martha changed her mind.”

“I once told you that you were like the old man,” he said reflectively, “but that’s not one hundred percent correct.
He would have ground Martha under his heel with the power that Nellie’s will gave you.”

“Nellie would never have wanted me to humiliate Martha.”

“Yes, that was her way. When she was the woman of the house here she did things well. But maybe our new woman will come into her own now.”

“You could be right, Jack,” Kate agreed.

Memoirs

To
School
Through
the
Fields

Quench
the
Lamp

The
Village

Country
Days

The
Night
Before
Christmas

Poetry

The
Way
We
Are

Close
to
the
Earth

Going
to
the
Well

Fiction

The
Woman
of
the
House

Across
the
River

House
of
Memories

Essays

A
Country
Miscellany

Diary

An
Irish
Country
Diary

Children’s

The
Secrets
of
the
Oak