The Made Marriage (4 page)

‘Oh!’ Kate felt her heart sink. There was no possible similarity between a haughty gentleman with notions of himself and the gay light-hearted Owen Lawlor who had courted her so assiduously in his letters.

‘I was thinking maybe it was the Fitzpatricks of Ballyfeeny you were looking for. Them
au pair
girls, as they call them, are always coming and going—more going than coming, you might say.’ He cackled delightedly at his witticism. ‘They’re a terrible wild lot are the Fitzpatricks, and if you was one of them
au pair
girls from foreign parts you’d be wise to turn round and go straight back where you came from.’

‘But it’s not the Fitzpatricks I’m looking for,’ Kate said desperately. ‘It’s Owen Lawlor of Laragh.’

‘There’s no doubt but that Mr. Owen lives at Laragh,’ the old man conceded, ‘but it still doesn’t make sense that a young girl like yourself should be gallivanting out there by herself; and it’s no way right, him being a bachelor.’

Kate, not being prepared to discuss the presence of Aunt Florrie as Chaperon, said nothing.

‘So he hasn’t come to meet you, is that it?’ the old man asked shrewdly.

‘I—I don’t think my letter can have reached him in time,’ Kate said defensively.

‘And no doubt you don’t fancy sleeping on the platform,’ he said
slyly.
It was dear that he was now regarding her as a potential customer and looked on it as a good bit of business to paint as gloomy a picture as possible.

Kate found her natural buoyancy deser
ti
ng her. Once the old man had departed she would be alone in the deserted station. It was easy enough too to picture those meandering chalk-white roads deserted and moonlit and herself trudging along carrying an equally bewildered Bedsocks. Yet her future had seemed so dearly marked out by Owen’s letters, especially the last one, in which he had said he was looking forward eagerly to her arrival. There was nothing at all to fear,
She
told herself, and for a moment longed to flaunt some of Owen’s letters in the face of the obstructive old jarvey—but they were much too pre
ci
ous and intimate to show to other eyes.

The old jarvey took out his handkerchief and buffeted his nose crossly. The grey eyes that looked up at him so hopefully were painfully like those of his favourite granddaughter, young Noreen, who had taken the boat to England one day and from then on had studiously ignored her family. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance have come across a young one by the name of Noreen Fogarty while you were on the other side?’ he inquired hopefully.

‘The other side?’ Kate repeated, completely at a loss.

The old man twitched his nose angrily. ‘Across the water, of course.’

Comprehension dawned. ‘Oh, you mean England,’ Kate inquired brightly.

‘Where else?’ he growled.

Kate shook her head slowly. ‘England’s quite big, you know, and there are so many people.’

The old man nodded resignedly and his thin stork-like neck seemed to recede into has green-tinged coat. ‘So they say,’ he remarked without conviction, and then sawed on the reins as a hint that he was about to ease his nag out of the station yard.

As his horse raised its head and began to amble away Kate again felt that tiny clutching hand of fear. ‘Perhaps you pass near Laragh,’ she called as she hurried after him. She hadn’t much money and she shrewdly suspected that he was both mean and avaricious.

‘I’ll
tell you what I’ll do,’ the jarvey said grudgingly. ‘Peggy here and myself are on our way home: we’ll be passing the side gate of Laragh. We could drop you off there and no doubt you can find your way up to the house through the orchard.’

Gratefully she piled her cases and Bedsocks’s basket on to one side of the jaunting-car and climbed up beside them. She clung with both hands on to the central brass rail as the old mare broke into an ambling trot as soon as they were dear of the station yard.

‘Old Peggy knows she’s going home,’ her owner grunted complacently. ‘She can put on a rare turn of speed when she knows there will be a hot mash waiting at home.’ And I’m going home too, perhaps, Kate thought with a little thrill of happiness, to a home she had never seen and a man she had never met. It might of course sound odd to those who didn’t understand the full story, but somehow the situation had arisen so simply and naturally that there seemed to be nothing at all strange about the fact that she had not yet laid eyes on her future bridegroom.

As the jaunting-car bumped and swayed over the flinty roads past hedges in bloom with the tiny delicate flower of the blackthorn, Kate held on to her perch with both hands and Bedsocks lost her natural placidity and keened dolefully from the depths of her basket.

A
little
past the cross roads the old man turned down a narrow winding lane. Primroses grew thickly on the grass-topped double ditches and Kate felt gathering excitement as the jarvey drew Peggy to a stop outside a small green gate set into a high wall. ‘This be the side gate to Laragh,’ he explained. ‘If you go direct through the orchard you’ll come to the house.’

Gratefully Kate scrambled down and when she had paid him, picked up her case in one hand and Bedsocks’s basket in the other, crossed the road and pushed open the gate. It was only after she had disappeared from sight that the jarvey reluctantly pulled on the reins and departed home.

Kate advanced on the short green turf between the low branches of old apple trees. Against the high brick walls grew espaliered pears and cherries and further on grew rows of raspberry canes and black and white currant bushes. More and more puzzled both by the size of the orchard and the fact that no whitewashed thatched cottage was in sight, she decided the jarvey had accidentally or by design brought her to the wrong place. Cautiously she picked her way through prickly gooseberry bushes until she saw a tall iron-work gate set into the wall. Through it she caught a glimpse of a wide cobbled yard and what appeared to be the kitchens and outhouses of a large sprawling farmhouse.

Before she had time to take stock of her surroundings a piglet wriggled its pink body through the railings and charged blindly into the orchard. It had almost dashed into her before frantically and with a loud piercing scream it changed course and Kate, jumping to one side in an effort to avoid it, tripped and fell headlong into a bed of young green plants. Her suitcase flew in one direction, Bedsocks’s basket in another, and as the lid burst open the little cat darted out, her hair bristling, and scrambled up to the top of a tall pear tree.

For a moment Kate lay breathless and winded before getting to her feet. She searched about for her handbag and when she had found it in the heart of a blackcurrant bush retrieved her suitcase. She was removing earth from her coat before trying to inveigle Bedsocks down from her perch when she became aware that a tall rather thick-set young man was regarding her from the now open iron gate. His expression was anything but amiable and Kate, bruised and shaken, forced an ingratiating smile. This, no doubt was the owner of the rather imposing house and the sooner she explained about the jarvey’s mistake, gathered her possessions together and departed, the better!

She waited a little apprehensively as he advanced towards her and as he drew near she saw that his hair was very black and straight and his features strong but irregular.

He glanced in a marked manner at the indentation her fall had made in the bed of plants. ‘And just what are you doing on my property?’ he asked abruptly.

‘It was
t
h
e
jarvey with the sidecar,’ Kate began reasonably. ‘He drove me from the station, but he must have made a mistake. You see, I asked to be taken to Laragh and—’

‘Just a minute, let’s get this straight.’ He sounded anything but conciliatory. ‘I assume you mean by “the jarvey”,
Ned Fogarty, who’s an idle old rogue who has never done an honest day’s work in his life.’

Kate blinked at the acidity of his tones. ‘Well, I thought he was very nice,’ she said defensively.

‘I’m
not interested in your opinion, young woman, and you still haven’t explained
w
hat you’re doing in my orchard.’

‘But I was trying to explain. You see, the jarvey, I mean, Ned Fogarty, evidently made a mistake. I asked him to take me to Owen Lawlor’s cottage, and he took me here instead.’

There was a short pause after this statement and Kate had time to note that his short broad fingers looked hard-worked and earth-stained and that the wide cheekbones were weather-tanned.

‘And did you specifically ask for a cottage?’ he asked finally.

Kate wrinkled her brows thoughtfully. ‘No, now that you mention it, I didn’t actually ask for Owen Lawlor’s
cottage.
I think I said Laragh, but that’s what it’s called, isn’t it?’

‘Then, as far as that goes, Mick made no mistake, which would have been extremely strange anyway, considering that, as a young man, he was employed here by my father.’

Kate gazed about with bewilderment. ‘But this isn’t a small farmhouse: there are no mountains, or—or lambs,’ she ended weakly. The well-stocked orchard and imposing buildings filled her with acute disappointment, and Owen Lawlor too was so very different from her gay teasing correspondent.

He looked grim and unsympathetic, and her reference to lambs seemed to mark the end of his patience. ‘Look, Miss Whoever-you-are, I haven’t the remotest idea what you’re talking about. I’m Owen Lawlor, and we’ve never had lambs here—or sheep for that matter. It’s nearly all pasture and dairy-farming in this part of the country, and now that you’ve wrought havoc amongst my cabbage plants I’d be obliged if you’d take yourself and your suitcase and dear off. I’m a busy man and I’ve no time for idiotic young women.’

Kate nodded miserably. ‘Now I’ve seen Laragh I realise it would never have worked out. But I can’t understand how you could have been so cruel as to bring me all this way under false pretences, for you don’t really want a wife, do you?’

Again there was an uncomfortable pause, but the expression of the raw-boned man had subtly changed. She detected a look of alertness in the dark hazel eyes.

‘Just what are you talking about?’ he asked sharply.

‘You needn’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,’ Kate returned indignantly. ‘Why, I’ve a whole bundle of your letters in my bag.’ She scrabbled in her handbag and produced the tiny limp advertisement she had culled from the newspaper and a packet of letters. ‘This is your advertisement, and these are the last letters you sent me.’ Then as she remembered the warm welcoming words, she felt such bitter disappointment at the reality that tears spilled down her cheeks.

He glanced at her briefly. ‘There’s no necessity to display emotion for my benefit. I’m not the type of man who’s moved by tears.’

‘But I’m not trying to—to move you,’ Kate sniffed. ‘It’s just that I’m remembering your last letter. You sounded so kind and considerate and you’re not really: you’re cold and rude and hard and—’ To her dismay she burst into loud sobs.

Owen Lawlor, however, was unaware of her misery. He was glancing with incredulous eyes through some of the green-tinted sheets of letter paper that were folded and worn with many readings. So Nicky was up to his old tricks! But this time it was something more than one of his usual immature pranks: it had landed him with a small round-faced girl with dark golden hair and enor
m
ous grey eyes, not to speak of the extraordinary-looking cat at the top of the pear-tree.

With irritation he saw large tears roll down the intruder’s cheeks. ‘And just what are you weeping about? Personally I think you’ve got exactly what you deserved. Didn’t it strike you as a bit imprudent to answer such a blatant piece of buffoonery?’

The shock of his words made Kate’s tears suddenly stop flowing. ‘You mean you didn’t write the letters?’

‘Do I look the sort of man who’d write such mushy drivel to an unknown and impressionable young woman?’

He was right, Kate concluded. The high-boned and weatherbeaten man who stood before her with his harsh unsympathetic manner was completely
at
variance with the picture she had summoned up of the suitor who had written her so ardently. ‘But who would have done such a thing?’ she asked bewilderedly.

‘It’s the sort of so-called joke my cousin, Nicky Fitzpatrick, would indulge in. He probably considered it hilariously funny.’

And Aunt Florrie too, no doubt, he reflected, with her constant and bra
c
ing attempts to hustle him into matrimony. However, thank heaven he would be well rid of this extraordinary young woman before his aunt descended on him again. It was the type of situation that would tempt
her to exploit her full armoury of calculated eccentricity.

‘I’m sorry, of course,’ he said, ‘but as you can see, your predicament has nothing to do with me.’

He was coldly dissociating himself, she could see. No doubt the dignified thing to do would be to take up her possessions and depart. But it wasn’t quite as simple as that. There was the long weary walk back to the station: besides, she had not eaten for several ho
ur
s and was beginning to get a horrible empty feeling in her stomach.

‘There’s a train back to Dublin in a few hours,’ he remarked. Then something in her expression made him add grudgingly, ‘Perhaps you’d like tea or something; afterwards I could drive you to the station.’

‘Yes, I would like tea,’ Kate admitted. ‘I had only a sandwich on the train.’ Then added politely, ‘But I don’t want to take you from your work.’

Owen Lawlor shrugged. ‘I was harrowing, but I can do it later.’ He felt a sudden urgency to get this girl off his property and out of his life. There was a strange tenacity about her that made him feel both irritated and faintly intrigued. ‘It’s Mrs. Murphy’s half day. However, no doubt I can rustle something up for you, but first, what about getting that animal out of the pear tree?’

But Bedsocks, like her mistress, had begun to feel the pangs of hunger and was already advancing tentatively down the tree trunk. Kate scooped her up and popped her into the basket. ‘I’d better keep her there until she gets used to things,’ she explained.

‘Used to things
?
’ Owen inquired sharply. ‘But neither of you will be here long enough to need to get used to things.’

‘No, of course not,’ Kate said hastily. ‘A
ll
I meant was, until we’ve had something to eat.’

She tried not to think beyond the moment. Perhaps after refreshments in this comfortable sprawling farmhouse, she would feel capable of facing the hazards of the return journey, but for the present she wanted to think no further than sitting cosily by a large fire with a hot steaming cup of tea.

He led her across a wide cobbled yard where turkeys gobbled and white geese hissed at her approach. Two collie dogs dozed by a tractor and winding stone steps with a rustic banister led up to grain lofts above the stable.

Kate glanced down apprehensively at the basket. Bedsocks was inclined to be intolerant of dogs and could create a terrifying dramatic scene if one as much as ventured on to the steps of The Trinket Box.

‘Don’t worry,’ Owen remarked dryly. ‘Shep and Pinch are outdoor animals; they don’t come into the house and I don’t keep pets.’

No, he probably didn’t keep pets, Kate thought a little acidly as she shot a sidelong glance at her companion. It was impossible to imagine him keeping any animal that wasn’t strictly useful: he gave the impression of being completely devoid of sentiment and for a moment she wished passionately that by some miracle he
c
ould be transfigured into the Owen Lawlor whose letters had been so redolent of warmth and charm.

In silence she followed him into a large kitchen with dark red-tiled floors and white scrubbed woodwork. A red-hot fire burned in the range and pieces of smoked brown ham hung by hooks from the raftered ceiling.

Owen paused doubtfully. ‘I suppose you won’t mind if we’ve tea here. Usually there’s no fire lit in the other rooms until the evening, as I’m out on the land most of the day.’

‘Oh no,’ Kate replied eagerly. It was the type of kitchen she wa
rm
ed to. It was easy to imagine it filled with the appetising scent of brown crusted loaves fresh from the oven, the cheerful clatter of pots and pans, while workmen seated around the long white scrubbed table chatted and laughed, before returning to the fields.

‘Everything’s so bright and sparkling,’ Kate enthused.

Owen glanced around speculatively, as though noticing for the first time the copper skillets gleaming against the wall and the dresser on which china and glass sparkled. ‘Yes, I suppose Mrs. Murphy’s a good worker, in spite of the fact she’s addicted to the bottle,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Actually I tried to get rid of her on several occasions, but she turned up again like a bad penny, and gradually she has become a sort of fixture.’

But it will be much easier to get rid of me, Kate thought. Parting with people would not offer difficulties to this hard cold man; there would be no sentimental memories, no regrets once he had made a decision.

A kettle hissed on top of the range and a large rose-patterned teapot stood on the dresser. Owen, however, glanced at his companion for the first time with a suggestion of embarrassment. He was one of those men, Kate guessed, who are completely helpless as far as domestic things are concerned and in all probability could not boil the proverbial egg.

She found herself proved right in her surmise when he said uncomfortably, ‘I’ll make tea if you set
the
things out on the table. You’ll find supplies in the larder and I know Mrs. Murphy keeps
the
soda-bread in the cupboard in the dresser.’

Kate nodded understandingly; it was a situation in which she was perfectly at home and swif
tl
y taking off her coat
she
donned a minute floral-patterned apron she found behind the kitchen door.

When Bedsocks had been released, she gravitated without hesitation towards the fire and, displaying not the smallest signs of unease, curled up and promptly went to sleep.

While Owen rather ponderously made the tea Kate explored the larder and studied with interest the contents of the
c
ool slate shelving. It was a sort of culinary Aladdin’s cave: an enormous glazed yellow crock brimmed full with creamy milk; bacon and mutton reposed on wooden platters; her eyes fell on rich yellow butter and fat cheeses and dark brown honey. High above her head she saw rows of pickles and preserves and the galaxy of colour formed by jars of cherry, blackcurrant, rhubarb and plum jam.

She filled a jug with milk and placing a varied selection of edibles on a battered japanned tray returned with a glow of achievement to the kitchen.

‘There should be a tablecloth somewhere or other,’ Owen said uneasily,
‘
but I’m afraid I can’t locate it.’

Kate pursed her mouth thoughtfully. Now where would Mrs. Murphy keep the kitchen tablecloth? Then diving her hand into a drawer at the end of the table triumphantly she produced it.

When Bedsocks had been provided with a saucer of milk Kate, rather to her astonishment, found herself pouring tea and endeavouring to make
s
mall-talk—an effort which proved most unrewarding. Owen Lawlor appeared preoccupied and she got the distinct impression that his mind was engaged in devising ways of getting Bedsocks and herself out of his life as soon as possible.

After tea he would drive them to the station in good time to catch the next Cork-Dublin-bound train. Seated comfortably in the warm kitchen the spring sunshine bright on the copper skillets, she felt a wistful desire to prolong the moment. Generations of living had given the kitchen an intangible atmosphere of security and comfort. Her eyes fixed on a vase of pale wild daffodils: the flowers had been roughly pushed into the water—no doubt by the bottle-addicted Mrs. Murphy—but it was easy to visualise them blowing in the fields of Laragh. Soon she would be gone for ever, taking with her only a memory of her glimpse into the domain of Owen Lawlor.

Owen, glancing at her small round pensive face, was conscious of being extraordinarily irritated by this strange girl; at the same time he felt an uncharacteristic interest i
n
her motives.

‘Just what dire fate were you trying to escape when you went to the length of answering a matrimonial advertisement?’

Kate blushed. Put like that her actions sounded completely incomprehensible. ‘Nothing very dreadful, really! My cousin is getting married and I decided I shouldn’t be happy sharing her new home.’

He frowned into the mug he was holding in his strong work-hardened hands. ‘And you thought that good enough reason to travel to Ireland to meet a completely unknown man?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘Well, not exactly,’ Kate said carefully. ‘At first the whole business was a sort of joke. I thought it might keep my mind off leaving The Trinket Box.’

‘Leaving The Trinket Box? You’re not making yourself very clear, are you?’

‘It was a little antique business,’
she
went on hastily. ‘My cousin Margot inherited it from her father: he was an expert on antiques. Things changed when Margot took over: for one thing, the town was not as prosperous as it used to be and Margot and I have been conducting the business on a sort of hit-or-miss basis. Of course, my cousin knew a lot more about things than I did,’ she added, feeling vaguely disloyal. ‘I’m afraid I made a few expensive mistakes.’

‘I can imagine you did,’ he replied dryly. ‘All the same, you don’t strike me as
the
type of girl who would jump at the first offer of marriage, especially from a complete stranger.’

‘Oh, but it wasn’t as simple as that! It’s all rather mixed up really.’

From the sardonic look that flashed across her companion’s face she guessed that he was not impressed by this explanation, and rushed on, ‘His letters were so—so wonderful, and understanding. I felt almost as if I’d known him all my life.’

‘I don’t doubt it! Nicky has a talent for guessing exactly what a woman wants to hear and then giving it in large doses.’

‘But why should he do such a thing?’ she almost wailed. ‘What possible satisfaction could he get out of such a cruel and heartless deception?’

‘Your feelings were the last thing Nicky would take into consideration. His one idea would be to embarrass me. As I am a confirmed bachelor it’s naturally my family’s unrelenting ambition to provide me with a wife. They find it difficult to believe that I find life perfectly satisfactory as it is. Having a completely strange young woman turn up at the home of a misanthrope like myself and announce herself as my intended bride is Nicky’s idea of excruciating humour. By the way, as you seem to like his turn of mind so much, what about paying him back in his own coin by arriving up at Ballyfeeny?’

Kate glanced at him in horror. ‘You don’t really mean that, do you?’