Scarlett (69 page)

“I wish I could dress like that every day. Is that what you wear when you’re home? You lucky girl, no wonder you wanted to come back.”

“These are best dressing, for Market Day and to catch the eyes of the lads. I’ll show you everyday things, too. Come.” Kathleen caught Scarlett by the wrist again and led her through the masses of people just as she’d led her through the cows. Near the square’s center there were tables—boards across trestles—piled with finery for women. Scarlett goggled. She wanted to buy everything she saw. Look at all the stockings… and wonderful shawls, so soft to the touch… goodness gracious, what lace! Why, my dressmaker in Atlanta would practically sell her soul to get her hands on rich heavy lace like that. There they were, the skirts! Oh, the darlings, how wonderful she’d look in that shade of red—and the blue, too. But wait—there was another blue on that next table, a darker one. Which was best? Oh, and lighter reds over there—

She felt giddy from the lavishness of choice. She had to touch them all—the wool was so soft, thick, alive with warmth and color under her gloved hand. Quickly, carelessly, she stripped off a glove so she could feel the woven wools. It was like no fabric she’d ever touched.

“I’ve been waiting by the pies, with water filling my mouth from hunger,” said Colum. He put his hand on her arm. “Don’t fret, now, you can come back, Scarlett darling.” He lifted his hat and nodded to the black-clad women behind the tables. “May the sun shine forever on your fine work,” he said. “I ask your pardon for my American cousin here. She lost her tongue in admiration. I’m going to feed her now and, please Saint Brigid, she’ll be able to talk to you when she returns.” The women grinned at Colum, stole another sideways glance at Scarlett, said “Thank you, Father,” as Colum hauled her away.

“Kathleen told me you’d gone completely draft,” he said with a chuckle. “She plucked at your sleeve a dozen times, poor girl, but devil a look you’d give her.”

“I forgot all about her,” Scarlett admitted. “I’ve never seen so many wonderful things all at once. I figured I’d buy a costume for a party. But I don’t know if I can wait to wear it. Tell me the truth, Colum, do you think it would be all right if I dressed like the Irish girls while I’m here?”

“I don’t believe you should do other, Scarlett darling.”

“What fun! What a lovely vacation, Colum. I’m so glad I came.”

“So are we all, Cousin Scarlett.”

*   *   *

She didn’t understand the English money at all. The pound was paper and weighed less than an ounce. The penny was huge, big as a silver dollar, and the thing called a tuppence, which meant two pennies, was smaller than the one penny. Then there were coins called half pennies and others called shillings… It was all too confusing. Besides, it didn’t really matter, it was all free, from whist winnings. The only thing that counted was that the skirts cost two of the shilling things, the shoes were one. The stockings were only pennies. Scarlett gave the drawstring bag of coins to Kathleen. “Make me stop before I run out,” she said, and she began to shop.

All three of them were loaded down when they went to the hotel. Scarlett had bought skirts in every color and every weight—the thinner ones were also worn for petticoats, Kathleen told her—and dozens of stockings—for herself, for Kathleen, for Brigid, for all the other cousins she was going to meet. She had shirts, too, and yards and yards of lace, wide and narrow and made into collars and fichus and cunning little caps. There was a long blue cape with a hood, plus a red one because she couldn’t make up her mind, plus a black one because Kathleen said most people wore black for every day, and a black skirt for the same reason, which could have colored petticoats underneath. Linen fichus and linen shirtwaists and linen petticoats—all like no linen she’d ever seen—and six dozen linen handkerchiefs. Stacks of shawls; she’d lost count.

“I’m worn out,” Scarlett groaned happily when she dropped down onto the plush settee in the living room of their suite. Kathleen dropped the money bag into her lap. It was still more than half full. “My grief,” said Scarlett, “I’m really going to love Ireland!”

S
carlett was entranced with her bright “costumes.” She tried to wheedle Kathleen into “dressing up” with her and returning to the square, but the girl was politely adamant in her refusal. “We’ll be eating dinner late, Scarlett, according to the English custom of the hotel, and we’ve an early start to make tomorrow. There are lots of market days; we have one every week in the town near our village.”

“But not like Galway’s, judging from what you said,” Scarlett noted suspiciously. Kathleen admitted that the town of Trim was much, much smaller. Nonetheless, she didn’t want to go back to the square. Scarlett grudgingly stopped nagging.

The dining room of the Railway Hotel was known for its fine food and service. Two liveried waiters seated Kathleen and Scarlett at a large table beside a tall, much-curtained window, then stood behind their chairs to serve them. Colum had to make do with the tail-coated waiter in charge of the table. The O’Haras ordered a dinner of six courses, and Scarlett was thoroughly enjoying a delicately sauced cutlet of Galway’s famous salmon when she heard music from the square. She pulled back the heavily fringed draperies, the silk curtain beneath them, and the thick lace panel beneath that. “I knew it!” she announced. “I knew we should have gone back. They’re dancing in the square. Let’s go right this minute.”

“Scarlett, darling, we’ve only begun to have dinner,” Colum argued.

“Fiddle-dee-dee! We all ate ourselves practically sick on the ship; the last thing we need is another endless dinner. I want to put on my costume and dance.”

Nothing would dissuade her.

“I’m not understanding you at all, Colum,” Kathleen said. The two of them were on one of the square’s benches near the dancing, in case Scarlett got into any trouble. Wearing a blue skirt over red and yellow petticoats, she was dancing the reel as if she’d been born to it.

“What is it you don’t understand, then?”

“Why are we staying at this fine English hotel, like kings and queens, at all? And if we’re doing it, why could we not eat our fancy dinner? It’s the last we’ll have, I know that. Couldn’t you say to Scarlett, ‘No, we’ll not go,’ as I did?”

Colum took her hand in his. “The way of it is this, my little sister, Scarlett is not yet ready for the truth of Ireland, or the O’Haras in it. I hope to make it easier for her. Better she should see wearing Irish garb as a merry adventure than weeping when she learns that her fancy silk trains will get covered with muck. She’s meeting Irish people out there in the reel and finding them pleasing, for all their rough garments and dirty hands. It’s a grand event, though I’d rather be sleeping.”

“But we go home tomorrow, do we not?” Kathleen’s longing throbbed in the question.

Colum squeezed her hand. “We go home tomorrow, that I promise you. We’ll be in a first class carriage on the train, though, and you mustn’t remark it. Also, I’m putting Scarlett to stay with Molly and Robert, and you’re not to say a word.”

Kathleen spit on the ground. “That for Molly and her Robert. But so long as it’s Scarlett with them and not me, I’m willing to keep my tongue.”

Colum frowned, but not at his sister. Scarlett’s current dancing partner was trying to embrace her. Colum had no way of knowing that Scarlett had been an expert since she was fifteen at inciting men’s attentions and escaping them. He stood up quickly and moved toward the dancing. Before he got there, Scarlett had slipped away from her admirer. She ran to Colum. “Have you come to dance with me at last?”

He took her outstretched hands. “I’ve come to take you away. It’s past time to be sleeping.”

Scarlett sighed. Her flushed face looked bright red under the pink paper lantern hanging over her head. Throughout the square brightly colored lights swung from the branches of tall, wide-crowned trees. With the fiddles playing and the thick crowd laughing and calling as they danced, she hadn’t heard exactly what Colum said, but his meaning was clear.

She knew he was right, too, but she hated to stop dancing. She had never known such intoxicating freedom before, not even on Saint Patrick’s Day. Her Irish costume was not made to wear with stays, and Kathleen had laced her only enough to keep her corset from falling down to her knees. She could dance forever and never get short of breath. It felt like she wasn’t held in at all, not in any way.

Colum looked tired, in spite of the pink glow of the lamp. Scarlett smiled and nodded. There would be plenty more dancing. She’d be in Ireland for two weeks, until after her grandmother celebrated her hundredth birthday. The original Katie Scarlett. I wouldn’t miss that party for all the world!

This makes much more sense than our trains at home, Scarlett thought when she saw all the open doors to the individual compartments. How nice to have your own little room instead of sitting in a car with a bunch of strangers. No walking forever in the aisle, either, getting on and off, or people half-falling in your lap when they walked past your seat. She smiled happily at Colum and Kathleen. “I love your Irish trains. I love everything about Ireland.” She settled comfortably in the deep seat, eager to pull out of the station so she could look at the countryside. It was bound to be different from America.

Ireland didn’t disappoint her. “My stars, Colum,” she said after they’d been travelling for an hour, “this country’s positively peppered with castles! There’s one on practically every hill, and more in the flat country, too. Why are they all falling down? Why don’t people live in them?”

“They’re very old, for the most part, Scarlett darling, four hundred years or more. People found more comfortable ways to live.”

She nodded. That made sense. There must have been a lot of running up and down stairs in the towers. Still, they were awfully romantic. She pressed her nose to the window again. “Oh,” she said, “what a shame. My castle watching’s over. It’s starting to rain.”

“It will stop,” Colum promised.

As it did, before they reached the next station.

“Ballinasloe,” Scarlett read the name aloud. “What beautiful names your towns have. What’s the name of the place the O’Haras live?”

“Adamstown,” Colum replied. He laughed at the expression on Scarlett’s face. “No, it’s not very Irish. I’d change it for you if I could, I’d change it for all of us if I could. But the owner’s English, and he’d not like it.”

“Somebody owns the whole town?”

“It’s not a town, that’s just the English bragging. It’s hardly even a village. It was named for the son of the Englishman who first built it, a small gift for Adam, the estate was. It’s been inherited since then by his son and grandson and so on. The one that has it now never sees it. He lives mostly in London. It’s his agent who manages things.”

There was a bite of bitterness in Colum’s words. Scarlett decided she’d better not ask questions. She contented herself with looking for castles.

Just as the train began to slow for the next station she saw an enormous one that hadn’t crumbled at all. Surely somebody lived there! A knight? A prince? Far from it, said Colum; it was a military barracks for a regiment of the British Army.

Oh, I’ve put my foot in it this time for sure, thought Scarlett. Kathleen’s cheeks were flaming. “I’ll get us some tea,” Colum said when the train stopped. He pulled the window down from the top and leaned out. Kathleen stared at the floor. Scarlett stood next to Colum. It felt good to straighten her knees. “Sit down, Scarlett,” he said firmly. She sat. But she could still see the groups of smartly uniformed men on the platform, and the shake of Colum’s head when he was asked if any seats were vacant in the compartment. What a cool customer he was. No one could see past him because his shoulders filled the window, and there were three large empty seats going begging. She’d have to remember that next time she rode an Irish train, just in case Colum wasn’t with her.

He handed in mugs of tea and a lumpy folded cloth just as the train began to move. “Try an Irish specialty,” he said, smiling now, “it’s called barm brack.” The rough linen cloth held great slabs of delicious, fruit-filled light bread. Scarlett ate Kathleen’s, too, and asked Colum if he could get some more for her when they stopped at the next station.

“Can you stay hungry another half hour or so? We’ll be getting off the train then and we can have a proper meal.” Scarlett was delighted to agree. The novelty of the train and the castle-peppered views had begun to wear off. She was ready to get wherever it was they were going.

But the station sign said “Mullingar,” not “Adamstown.” Poor lamb, Colum said, hadn’t he told her? They could only go part way on the train. After they ate their dinner, they’d make the rest of the journey by road. It was only twenty miles or so; they’d be home before dark.

Twenty miles! Why, that was as far as from Atlanta to Jonesboro. It would take ages, and they’d already been on the train for practically six hours. It took all her will to smile pleasantly when Colum introduced his friend Jim Daly. Daly wasn’t even good-looking. His wagon was, however. It had tall wheels painted bright red and glossy blue sides with J. DALY on them in bold gilt. Whatever business he’s in, thought Scarlett, he’s doing well at it.

Jim Daly’s business was a bar and brewery. Even though she was landlord to a saloon, Scarlett had never been in it; it made her feel pleasantly wicked to be entering the malty-smelling large room. She looked curiously at the long, polished oak bar, but she had no time to take in the details before Daly opened another door and ushered her through it into a hallway. The O’Haras were having dinner with him and his family in their private quarters above the public house.