by Sara Seale
“Let me tell you that I never cry—except with rage, and Kilmallin certainly wouldn’t listen to any complaints of mine, even if I made any,” she said scornfully. “He’s always treated me like a boy—like a son.”
He looked at her curiously.
“But wouldn’t you rather be treated like a daughter?” he asked gently. “It’s your privilege, you know.”
“No,” she said quickly and passionately. “Kilmallin has no use for women, and neither have I.”
He smiled, but not unkindly.
“You’re a queer little girl,” he told her, “but I’ve no doubt you’ll change when you grow up.”
“I’m not a child,” she said coldly, and he smiled again. She sat picking a thread out of her skirt, then asked abruptly:
“Are you going to stay?”
He threw his cigarette-end into the fire and looked at her thoughtfully.
“I don’t know,” he said then. “I told your father I would decide in the morning.”
“I suppose,” she said with an effort, “you could stop on and teach Brian. After all, he’s really the important one and he seems to like you.”
“Unfortunately your father insists that you are included, too.”
“If Kilmallin has a fixed idea in his head,” she told him with a sigh, “you may as well make the best of it.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he replied mildly. “There was evidently a misunderstanding. If I’d realized you were a girl and not a boy, I wouldn’t have agreed to the job in the first place. I can always go back to England again.”
“In spite of Kilmallin?”
“Certainly in spite of your father. I’m under no obligation to him, you know.”
“Kilmallin wants you to stay, doesn’t he?” She was not looking at him, and he studied her thin, mobile little face afresh. The firelight softened the planes and sharp contours, and he found a curious sensitivity there, and a hint of maturity which he had not at first noticed.
“Yes, I think he does,” he replied.
She raised her eyes to his, wide and smoky and grave under the strongly marked brows, and quite suddenly he felt he wanted to know her better, wanted to see if he could teach her.
“What do you think you’ll do?” she asked.
He stood up and began to search through his pockets for his keys.
“That all depends on you,” he said lightly, and stooped to unlock a suitcase.
She got to her feet and made a face at his back.
“Oh, well, then, it’s practically settled,” she said cheerfully, and started for the door.
He straightened up, and turned to look at her across the width of the room.
“Is it?” he said politely.
“Of course. I don’t want to work for you, and you don’t want to teach me. Kilmallin will just have to start again, that’s all.” She smiled at him quite amicably. “There’s duck for dinner and velvet creams all in your honour. See you later.”
She disappeared, banging the door behind her, and he could hear her footsteps echoing on the stone stairs with a lightness and buoyancy which made him suddenly smile.
Kevin did his utmost to make the first evening a pleasant one. He brought up a bottle of his finest claret and turned the whole occasion into a celebration. He could, when he chose, play perfectly the part of the typical Irish country gentleman, courtly and amusing and generously openhanded. He had taken just enough whisky before dinner to make, him feel on top of his form and he was determined to captivate the Englishman and ensure his co-operation.
He tried to draw his son out, passionately wanting Brian to be viewed in his best light by the stranger, but the boy, as always when his father focused too much attention on him, became nervous and shy. Mark observed that Kevin’s manner towards his two children was entirely different. With the boy, he was gentle and patient to the point of embarrassment, but with Clancy he showed at once a rough tolerance, and an odd impatience of the very qualities he was for ever seeking in his son. Once or twice, Mark surprised a flash of disappointment in the girl’s face, a fleeting hurt in her eyes, and he thought how perverse life was. Clancy clearly admired her father, but he doubted whether the boy felt anything more than an uneasy respect for him.
Mark had yet to meet Agnes, and after dinner Aunt Bea suggested that Clancy and Brian should take their new tutor up to the old nursery. It was very necessary to humour Agnes, who could be a disruptive force in their lives, and she had not taken kindly to the idea of a tutor for her delicate nursling.
“Let Brian take him,” Kevin said, hoping that once they were alone the boy would have more to say for himself. Clancy, who had no wish to do more for the guest than the bare rules of hospitality demanded, acquiesced cheerfully and remained in the library with her aunt and her father.
Brian, released from his father’s restraint, became much more talkative, and insisted on showing Mark the schoolroom before they went to see Agnes. Here, in his own domain, he seemed more normal, and watching him move about the room, displaying his treasures, Mark could detect very little sign of the delicacy which Kevin had stressed so much.
On the blackboard was a crudely chalked drawing of an old man’s head. He was quite bald, with a solitary hair which stood up like a question mark on the top, and a beard sprouted from his chin in rich profusion. Underneath was written in an unformed hand: “Down with the English.”
“Who is the artist?” asked Mark, his eyes twinkling.
Brian took a duster and rubbed the drawing out.
“Clancy did it,” he said. “It’s supposed to be you. You see, we thought you would be an old professor. Conn said you would.”
“I see. Who, exactly, is Conn?”
“He’s Conn Driscoll, and he breeds horses,” said Brian, looking slightly surprised that someone like Conn should have to be explained. “He lives the other side of the loch and he’s Clancy’s friend.”
“I see,” said Mark again. “Were all your governesses old?”
“Most of them,” said Brian indifferently. “Except one. But Agnes said she set her cap at Kilmallin, so Aunt Bea got rid of her. She was nice,” he finished a little wistfully, “but Agnes didn’t like her.”
“Do you think you would like to have a man to teach you?” Mark asked curiously.
“I don’t know,” Brian replied doubtfully. “Agnes says you will work me too hard.”
“Oh, I expect you can do much more than you think,” said Mark.
“That’s what Clancy says,” Brian replied. “Shall we go and see Agnes now?”
The old nursery still retained its name, although it had been Agnes’s own domain for years. It was a pleasant room, still furnished with the original nursery pieces with the addition of an extra easy chair, and numerous snapshots and mementoes with which she had filled every available space.
Agnes herself was sitting by the fire, knitting, and she rose with a certain amount of reluctance as they came into the room and looked Mark over with a speculative eye. She immediately began reciting a long list of the things Brian was not supposed to do, finishing up by saying that she would brook no interference with regard to the boy’s health.
Mark listened politely, amused at first, and then slightly irritated. It was plain that Agnes had ruled the governesses.
“I shouldn’t dream of interfering in matters outside my province,” he told her courteously. “That is, if I stay at all.”
Agnes’s little eyes snapped open with astonishment.
“An’ why should you not be staying?” she demanded truculently. “There’s many a young felly would like to be in your shoes, let me be tellin’ you.”
“I dare say you’re right,” Mark replied imperturbably. “But you see I was under the impression I was to take charge of two boys.”
Agnes relaxed.
“Och, is it Clancy?” she said with a shrug. “She’s just thrown in with the other. You don’t need to trouble yourself about her. It’s this boy here that matte
rs. Kilmallin sets such store by him, as you will have noticed for yourself, an’ so do we all, don’t we, Brian, me doty child?”
Brian went to her, and rubbed his cheek against her shoulder like a kitten.
“I like Mr. Cromwell,” he said unexpectedly. “I hope he’ll stay.”
The old woman gave Mark a look of distrust.
“You look pale, boy,” she said, turning Brian’s face round to the lamp. “Have you a miscomfort anywhere?”
“I think I’ve got a pain in my stomach,” said Brian who, until that moment, had been feeling perfectly well.
“It’ll be too rich food,” Agnes said, holding him to her. “Was it wine you drank as well?”
“A little. Clancy had two glasses.”
“Och, that one’s never a thought for her little brother! You cannot do the same as Clancy, so I’m always telling you—she hasn’t the fineness of you. Let you go back to the others, sir. I’ll see this boy goes to bed,” Agnes finished, turning to Mark who had stood watching them both with an expressionless face.
“Very well,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “Good night.”
He reflected a little grimly as he went down the stairs that they were making a ninny of the boy. Kevin had promised that if Mark stayed there would be no interference from him, but that had applied to the girl. He wondered very much if his dealings with Brian would be so free as was implied.
The library door was open, and he could hear their voices distinctly. Kevin was saying, an exasperated note in his voice:
“I’m telling you, Clancy, I want him to stay. He’s the very man for Brian, and I think he’s taken to the boy.”
“He doesn’t want to teach me, Kilmallin,” replied Clancy’s clear tones. “And I shouldn’t think even you can make him do what he doesn’t want to.”
“Och!” Kilmallin’s voice had an edge to it. “It would have to be you upsetting all my plans! I don’t blame the man for not wishing to teach you—you’ve done nothing but antagonize him since he arrived. But you might think of Brian—you might think of me. You don’t have to learn if you don’t want to, but you can at least behave yourself and forget all this nonsense Conn’s taught you.”
“I tell you he won’t—” Clancy broke off as Mark came into the room. Her face was flushed, but he thought the brightness in her eyes was of distress rather than of anger.
“Brian is going to bed,” he said, taking no notice of her. “Agnes seemed to think it was best.”
“Is he not well?” Kevin asked with immediate alarm.
“Oh, I think he’s all right,” Mark replied, looking at him curiously. “As a matter of fact, his nurse put the idea into his head.”
“Agnes wouldn’t do that,” said Aunt Bea quickly. “But she knows the signs so much quicker than we do. Perhaps I’d better go and see.”
“I’ll come with you,” Kevin said, and they both left the room.
Clancy fidgeted, picking up objects, and putting them down again. Every line of her slender back expressed her desire to get out of the room and not be left alone with Mark.
“There’s nothing the matter with him really, you know,” he said.
“I know,” she replied briefly.
“Has it always been like this? This concern for his health, I mean?”
“Oh, yes. Brian had infantile paralysis as a child. It left him delicate.”
“But not, I think, as delicate as he’s made out to be.”
She turned then, and looked at him with startled eyes.
“I’ve always thought—” she began quickly, but stopped, a closed look coming into her face. “You’re a stranger. You wouldn’t understand. Brian is all Kilmallin has.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“All?”
“Yes, all,” she said with a queer bitter little air of maturity. “The O’Shane women have never counted.”
He stood with his back to the fire, looking down at her.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen! I took you for fifteen! Yes, that does make a difference.”
She frowned at him.
“A difference to what?”
“Your studies. Choosing a syllabus that can be adapted to you both.”
“Well,” said Clancy indifferently, “that won’t matter, as you’ll be going.”
He jingled the loose coins in his pockets.
“But then, you see, I’m not going,” he said gently.
“Not going?” She looked at him with dismay.
He shook his head slowly, his face quite grave except for the spark of amusement in his eyes.
“No,” he said, “I’ve decided to take you on and see if I can make any sort of impression on your stubborn little mind.”
CHAPTER FOUR
AFTERWARDS, Mark could never decide what had made him change his mind. The girl’s antagonism and the boy’s complacency to ill-health had certainly been no inducement to stay. Perhaps, after all, it was just a dislike of being beaten before he had started, or perhaps it was Clancy standing there in the lamplight saying: “The O’Shane women have never counted.”
Kevin, of course, was delighted.
“I thought you’d not go,” he said with relieved complacence. “I knew the boy would win you in the end, in spite of Clancy’s antics.”
Mark gave him a curious glance.
“Would it very much surprise you, Mr. O’Shane,” he said slowly, “if I were to tell you that it was Clancy who decided me, and not Brian?”
Kevin’s handsome, slightly bloodshot eyes opened widely. “Clancy!” He laughed. “Oh, I see, she piqued you, did she, with all that foolish talk?”
“No,” said Mark mildly. “No, I don’t think she did that. That aspect of her is merely rather tiresome. She tells me she’s seventeen. She seems young for her age.”
“Seventeen, is she?” mused Kevin with naive surprise. “Yes, I suppose she must be. But don’t let that worry you, my dear fellow. There’s not much of the woman in Clancy yet. But the boy, now. He’s taken a fancy to you. You like the boy?”
“He seems a nice child,” Mark replied non-committally. “Is he as delicate as his nurse would have him believe?”
Kevin frowned.
“We have to be careful,” he said evasively. “Of course, Agnes is a bit of a fusser, and so is my sister, like all women. But we have to be careful. Well, praise be to God, that’s all settled. Now, my dear man, everyone in the house understands that you will be in full charge. I don’t want you running to me for support every time something goes wrong in the schoolroom, like those women used to do. You’re a man, so you and I will understand each other. Make what rules you think fit and see that they’re kept, and if Clancy is troublesome you needn’t come to me for permission to give her a belting.”
Mark’s lips twitched.
“I don’t think I shall deal with your daughter quite so summarily,” he said. “She’s a little old for first-form treatment.”
Kevin’s face registered genuine surprise.
“Do you think so? Lick ‘em into shape has always been my principle. Many’s the time I’ve taken a slipper to that girl’s backside.”
Mark’s eyes twinkled.
“Well, I’ll do my best, Mr. O’Shane, with or without the aid of a slipper,” he said.
He decided that the week-end was best left free for him to get acquainted with his new charges, and proposed starting work on Monday by setting them both a general knowledge paper. It was impossible to map out a syllabus until he knew their standard, and he suspected that to be pretty low. Clancy, however, had no intention of cooperating with his preliminary plans. Brian appeared alone after breakfast on Saturday with instructions from his father to show the new tutor round, and they set off together to walk round the grounds.
Mark inquired where Clancy was, and Brian looked sulky.
“Gone over to Conn to report on you, I expect,” he said. “I’m not allowed in the
boat since we got caught in a squall in the spring.”
“Did you capsize?”
“No, but Agnes said we might have and I can’t stand wettings.”
“I see. And what about your sister? Doesn’t it matter if she gets soaked—or even drowned?”
“Clancy?” Brian sounded genuinely amazed. “Oh, Clancy’s tough. She never takes harm from anything. No one ever bothers about Clancy.”
Mark was silent, feeling a little irritated by so much general lack of concern. How, he wondered, did they expect the girl to be other than she was, when so little care was given?
Brian began to flag and asked if he might rest, so they sat on a fallen tree, and Mark lit a pipe and looked with interest at the house sprawling untidily in its roughly kept lawns a couple of fields behind them. It was not beautiful as most English manor houses, but it had a decayed dignity which matched the moor and the hills and the bog and the gentle greyness of the Irish skies.
“You are very isolated here,” Mark remarked, listening with pleasure to the noise of the little river that ran into the loch, and wondering if trout were to be caught there.
“Conn’s our nearest neighbour, except for the home farm,” Brian replied a little wistfully. “We don’t see many people. It’s nice when Clodagh comes.”
“Clodagh?”
“She’s our cousin and lives in Dublin and has lots of friends. She’s grown up now, and we think she’s very pretty.”
He told Mark all about Clodagh, who somehow turned into an elegant young lady between one visit and the next, about Aunt Kate who always quarrelled with Kevin, so never came to Kilmallin, and about Conn across the loch at Slievaun who was Clancy’s friend and special property.
