Collected Stories (121 page)

“Wisha, the Lord love you, Mr. Clancy!” says she. “'Tisn't that at all, only a cousin that's coming home from America on Friday. He mightn't be able to drink the other stuff.”

“Which cousin is that, Mary?” said Nan. “I never knew you had cousins in America.”

“Wisha, Mrs. Clancy, love,” said Mary, “'tis a cousin called Jer that we hardly knew we had ourselves,” and off she went into the usual rigmarole about her grandfather's brother that married a woman of the Lacys from Drumacre; not one of the Red Lacys mind you, but cousins of theirs. I could just about follow her; she might have been talking double Dutch for all Nan understood.

“And how is he going to get up to Oorawn?” she asked.

“Oye, he can probably get a lift,” said Mary, “or he might get the bus as far as Trabawn Cross.”

“And walk all the way up the valley with his bags!” said Nan. “Ah, Tim will meet him at the station and drive him up.”

Nan is the kindest soul in the world with my time and car. Still, I suppose she could hardly do less, and Kitty with us. So next evening I left her in charge of the shop and drove up to the station. There was the usual small handful on the train, but the devil an American boy could I see. When they cleared there was only a family of four left by the luggage wagon; father, mother, daughter and son, to judge by appearances.

“Is it anyone you were expecting, Tim?” said Hurley, the station-master.

“Only a Yankee cousin of the Oorawns that's coming home,” said I.

“'Twouldn't be one of them?” said Hurley, pointing to the family.

“I wouldn't say so,” said I, “but I suppose I'd better make sure.”

I went up to the elder man, a fine, tall, handsome-looking fellow about the one age with myself.

“Your name wouldn't be Sullivan, by any chance?” said I.

“That's right,” he said, reaching out his hand to me. “Are you one of my Oorawn cousins?”

“No,” said I, trusting in God to give me words in the predicament I was in, “only a friend with a car. Mick Hurley and myself will take out the bags for ye.”

And while we carried out the bags, I was thinking harder than ever I thought in my life. The American family wasn't my class at all. And as for Oorawn, you might as well drop them on a raft in mid-Atlantic. This was a case for Nan, and damn good right she had to handle it, seeing 'twas she that brought it on us with her interfering in other people's business.

“I'll have to call at the shop first,” I said as I got in. “Anyway, I dare say after that journey ye wouldn't say no to a cup of tea.”

The one thing about being to a good school is that, like Nan, you can make a fist of anything, even Americans. I took her place in the shop and she went upstairs with them. She came down about ten minutes after, looking a bit dazed.

“Do you know who they are?” said she, frightened and at the same time delighted. “Sullivan Shoes.”

“I never heard of Sullivan or his shoes,” said I, “but I wish he was in mine this minute.”

“Go up and talk to them while I get the tea,” said she. “I told them 'twas Kitty's day off. They're on their way to Paris. We'll have to stop them going to Oorawn.”

I saw Kitty coming down the stairs as I was going up, and she was like a ghost. She must have caught a glimpse of her American cousins and was thinking about the cabin and the pint of whiskey. With the main responsibility now off my shoulders I didn't mind. They were a nice family; the father was quiet, the mother was bright; Bob, the young fellow, was writing a book on something—he took after the mother, but Rose, the girl, was a real beauty. Every damned thing you told her, she took seriously. She wanted to know had we any fairies! I told her we had no fairies since the poteen was put down but the ghosts were something shocking.

“You mean you have ghosts in this house?” she said.

“Dozens of them,” said I, seeing that we were lacking in a lot of the conveniences a girl like that would be accustomed to and we might as well take credit for what she couldn't see. “The mother, God rest her, knew some of them so well that she used to quarrel with them like Christians.”

“Didn't I tell you what Grandfather used to say about the ghosts on the farm at home?” said her father, taking a rise out of her too.

I nearly laughed when he talked about “the farm” but I thought it was better to leave that to Nan. All the same I was glad when she came in with the tea. I took a cup and went down to mind the shop, and by the time I came back she was after persuading them to stop at the Grand Hotel. I ran the bags over, and then we set out for Oorawn. The car was pretty full with Rose sitting on Bob's knee. Their father sat in front with me where he could see a bit of the country. On a fine evening the sea road is grand. The sea was like a lake, and the mountains at the other side had a red light on them like plums.

“Is there only this road from Oorawn to Cove?” he asked me.

“There's only this road from Oorawn to Hell,” said I. “Why?”

“I was thinking,” said he, “this must be the road my grandfather travelled on his way to America. He used to describe himself sitting on their little tin trunk at the back of an open cart. My grandmother was having her first baby, and she was frightened. He sang for her the whole way to keep her courage up.”

“There was many a homesick tear shed along this road,” I said, because, damn it, the man touched me the way he spoke.

“Count the ruined cottages, and you'll see your grandmother wasn't alone.”

Then the road turned off up the valley and over the moors, a bad place to be on a winter's day. When we reached the Sullivans what did we see only Bridgie, rising up like an apparition from behind a bush with her skirts held up behind, and away she flew like the wind to the house. I was wishing then I hadn't Nan with me. It was bad enough, a lonely cottage in the hills that was expecting one American laboring boy from Butte, getting a blooming family of millionaires or near it. Signs on it, that was the last we saw of Bridgie.

I will say for Mary Sullivan that she made a great effort not to look as put out as she was. I smelt when I went in that she had just been baking for him.

“Wisha, and are you Jer?” she cried, wiping her hands in her apron before she'd touch him. “Law, I'm hearing about you always. And your family and all! Ye must be dying for a cup of tea!”

“We've just had tea, Mary,” said Nan, being tactful. “I don't want to put your cousins out, but Tim and myself have an appointment in town.”

“Why then, indeed,” said I, planting my ass on a chair near the fire, “the appointment can wait, because out of this house I don't stir till Mary Sullivan gives me tea. Have you griddle cake, Mary?”

“I have, aru,” said she. “Do you like griddle cake?”

Nan gave me a look like poultice, but the woman didn't know what she was talking about. If the Sullivans' cousins had left that cabin without a meal, the disgrace of it would have driven Mary to her grave.

“I hope we're not putting you out too much, Mrs. Clancy,” said Sullivan, “but I'd like it too. It isn't every day a man comes back to his grandfather's house.”

“Your grandfather's house?” cried Mary. “Ah, my darling, this isn't your grandfather's. Your grandfather's is about three fields away. 'Tis only an old ruin now.”

“Whatever it is,” he said, “I'd like to see it.”

“Will I show it to you?” she said, at her wits' ends to please him.

“After we have the tea, girl, after we have the tea,” said I. “What a hurry you're in to get rid of us!”

“Hurry?” she said, laughing. “The divil a hurry then, only the state we're in. Mrs. Sullivan,” she said, holding out her two hands to the American woman, “we're a holy show.”

“Ah, Mary,” said I, “if you took my advice five years ago and bought a vacuum cleaner, you needn't be afraid to hide your face today.”

“Do you hear him?” cried Mary. “A vacuum! Lord save us! You'll have to drink your tea out of a mug.”

“Have you ne'er a basin?” said I.

“Why?” said she. “Would you prefer a basin? Or is it making fun of me you are?”

The two younger girls were standing in front of Rose with their fingers in their mouths, looking at her as if she were a shop window.

“That's right,” I said. “Have a good look at your cousin, and stick to the books and maybe ye'd be like her some day.”

“Wisha, how in God's name would they, Mr. Clancy?” said Mary, really upset at last. “And don't be putting foolish notions into the children's heads.… Your daughter is a picture, Jer,” she said with the tears of delight standing in her eyes, and then she took Rose's two hands and held them. “You are, treasure,” she said. “I could be looking at you all day and not get tired.”

“Why then, indeed, Miss Sullivan,” I said to Mary, “as we're getting so polite with our misters and misses, you're not too bad-looking yourself.”

“Och, go away, you ould divil, you,” said she, giving me a push. Nan was mortified. She felt she'd never get a day's good of Kitty after that push.

“There never was a Sullivan yet without good looks, Mary,” said Sullivan, “and you have your share.”

“Wisha, God forgive you, Jer Sullivan!” she said, blushing up, but I could see the way the spirits rose in her.

We had the tea, and the griddle cake, and the boiled eggs and then we had the whiskey—the first bottle of proper whiskey opened in Oorawn for generations, as I told them—and then Sullivan got up.

“Now, Mary,” he said, “if you'll forgive me, I'd like to see the old place before it gets too dark.”

I noticed he brought his glass. He went on ahead with Mary; his wife and daughter with Nan, Bob with me, and the kids bringing up the rear, too bewitched to talk. Mary was apologizing for the dirt of the fields.

The sun was going down when we reached the ruin of the little cabin. It was all overgrown, and a big hawthorn growing on the hearth. Sullivan's face was a study.

“Grandfather used to say that the first Sullivan to come back should lay a wreath on the grave of the landlord that evicted us,” he said in a quiet voice.

“A wreath, is it?” cried Mary, not understanding his form of fun. “I know what sort of wreath I'd lay on it.”

“Now,” he said gently, a little embarrassed by us all, “I'd like to stay here a few minutes by myself, if you won't think it rude of me.”

“Don't stay too long,” said his wife. “It's turned quite chilly.”

We left him behind us, and made our way back over the fields.

“He's a very gentlemanly sort of man,” said Mary Sullivan to me. “Oh, law, wasn't it awful the way ye caught Bridgie?”

I saw the girl thought it was the same thing that was detaining her cousin, but I didn't try to enlighten her. I knew what he wanted with in the old ruin by himself. He was hoping for ghosts; ghosts of his grandfather's people that might be hanging round the old cabin so that they could see him there and know he had brought no disgrace on the name. I was touched by it the way I was touched by what he said about his grandfather. There was something genuine about the man that I couldn't help liking. I had an idea that the Sullivans would have no reason to regret his coming.

“Well,” I said, when he came back with his empty glass (I was afraid that someone would start asking him questions and he wouldn't like it), “we may as well be making tracks.”

As we were driving back down the hill I was pointing out the various landmarks to him. Behind us, Nan was explaining to his wife that Oorawn was exceptional and that all the “peasants” weren't as backward as the Sullivans. Some of them had fine cottages with beautiful gardens. You could see the Americans were a bit disappointed because there wasn't a garden.

Then as we reached the coast road Nan tapped me on the shoulder and said: “We'll call at Hopkins' as we are passing, Tim.”

“We will not,” I said.

“We must, Tim,” she said, getting as sweet as honey to cover up my bad temper. “Mrs. Hopkins promised me a few slips.”

As long as Nan is in the shop she never yet has learned anything about country people. How the blazes would she and she calling them “peasants”? I knew well the game she was up to. She wanted to show the Sullivans that we had good society, and herself and myself were the hub of it. But I had thought even she would know who the Hopkins were and why we couldn't bring the Sullivans there. She didn't. She nagged and nagged till I lost my temper.

“Very well,” I said, “go to Hopkins and be damned to you!”

And I turned in by the gate with the urns on top of the pillars. The major was out under the portico with his dirty old cap over his eyes, and his face lit up when he saw me. The major's wife won't let him take a drink unless 'tis with visitors, and he knew I could lower it for him.

“Just in time for a little drink, Clancy,” he said. “And is that your charming wife?”

“These are some American friends called Sullivan,” said I, “that want to see your house, and I came with them to make sure you didn't try to sell them anything.”

“You talk about selling things!” he said, delighted with me. “You damned old ruffian! In the good old days I'd have been on the magistrate's bench and seen you up in the county gaol. Don't believe a word this old rascal says to you, Mrs. Sullivan,” he says, pawing the American woman's hand.

It seemed supper was late, and Mrs. Hopkins asked us to have it with them. It went against my grain, but I knew it was what Nan wanted. The major's wife was one of the Fays of Frankfort. In her young days it used to be naval officers, but since the daughter grew up she went in more for social welfare. The Americans were delighted with the big staircase and the plaster panel in the first landing with a big picture in the middle of it. Then Bella came down after changing, a big, tall, broody-looking girl. You never saw anyone light up like that American boy did. We had our supper in the front room overlooking the bay, and then were delighted again with the fireplace and the paneling, and then Bella took Bob and Rose off to see the house. They came back in great excitement, and their mother and father had to be shown it.