by Ann Bridge
JULIA IN IRELAND
by
Ann Bridge
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 1
“Julia wants to come up next week” Edina Reeder said, turning the sheets of a letter.
“Oh, how very nice” Mrs. Hathaway said. “Has that lawyer taken the flat in Gray’s Inn, then?”
“Not so far—but there’s pages more” Mrs. Reeder said, reading on rapidly. “Yes” she added after a moment—“she says ‘The set is disposed of at last, quite satisfactorily’—that’s all she says about it.”
“I wonder what she will do with all that furniture—there were some lovely things of Philip Jamieson’s, and some very good pictures” Mrs. Hathaway pursued.
“Store them till she decides where she’s going to live, I suppose” Edina said, reading on. “Oh, listen to this—‘Could I bring a friend up for the first week-end? Gerald O’Brien—he can’t stay long.’ What do you make of that?”
Philip Reeder lowered the Glasgow Herald and stared at his wife.
“Julia bringing a man to stay? I should have said that could only mean one thing” he said. “Thinking of marrying again. Does she say any more about him?”
“ ‘He sings very well’ ” Edina read out—“that’s absolutely all she says.”
“O’Brien doesn’t sound much like an Italian opera-singer” Philip Reeder said, as usual at Glentoran getting up to put another couple of logs on the fire. “More coffee, Mrs. H.?” He refilled her cup. “I suppose he’s one of the chaps from her office.”
“No, I don’t think Mr. O’Brien is in Intelligence, though she did meet him while she was working in Tangiers” Mrs. Hathaway said. “He was out there with the O’Haras, those friends of hers from the County Mayo; I think he lives near them.”
“You haven’t met him?” Edina asked.
“No.”
“She seemed to be enjoying the Tangiers job when she came back for Christmas” Edina said. “She loves Morocco.”
“Who wouldn’t?” said Mrs. Hathaway. “Such a lovely climate, and such flowers! And I gather she has been remarkably successful in her work.”
It was now just over two years since the widowed Julia Jamieson, whose husband had been killed on a mission to Central Asia, had been taken on officially by his Service, British Intelligence, and after a little preliminary training in the London office had been sent out to Tangiers, where she had many friends and contacts. Meanwhile her small son and his Nanny had been parked with her cousins at Glentoran, where there was a sizeable Reeder brood in the ample nurseries.
“Oh, do they say so? Do you see her bosses?” Edina asked with interest.
“I see Major Hartley sometimes, and Major Torrens occasionally” the old lady said.
“Doesn’t look as if it would be much good Torrens starting dangling after Julia again” Philip Reeder said, “if she’s taken up with this Irish chap.” A Major Torrens was known to have pursued Julia with some vigour before her marriage to his senior colleague Colonel Jamieson; in fact Colin Monro, Edina’s brother, who was also in Intelligence, had once complained that falling in love with his cousin seemed to be an occupational hazard in the Service.
“I don’t think we ought to assume too much, Philip dear” Mrs. Hathaway said mildly.
“No, agreed—but you must admit that her actually asking to bring him up here looks a bit suspicious” her host replied. “She’s never done such a thing before. Well, I must be off. Want anything from Tarbert?” he asked his wife. “You, Mrs. H.?”
“I don’t want anything from, but there’s a case of honey to go to” Mrs. Reeder replied. “The Argyll Hotel, please.”
“Perhaps you would be so very kind as to look in at the Medical Hall and see if they’ve done my prescription—Dr. Lamont said he would drop it there” Mrs. Hathaway said.
“I’ll do that—the bus isn’t so good for bottles!” Philip Reeder said. He was familiar with the habit of West Highland bus-conductors, who act as carriers in a small way, of hurling parcels onto the roadside as their vehicle roars by at fifty miles an hour. “Is the honey in the hall?”
“No, in the cloak-room.”
“Right.” As he started towards the door it was flung open, and a small boy with a mop of reddish-gold hair rushed in. “Hullo, young Philip! Look where you’re going! You nearly knocked me down! Hullo, Nannie Mack—would you and the little ‘un like a run in to Tarbert?”
“Oh thank you, Sir, but I think not today. Master Philip has been a naughty boy.”
“What’s he done, Nannie?” Mrs. Reeder asked.
“He pulled up a plant in Miss Rosina’s garden” Nannie was beginning when she was interrupted by a series of bellows from young Philip—“Want to go to Tarbert! Want to go to Tarbert!”
“Oh no you don’t! Not if you shout like that” Reeder said cheerfully. “Pipe down, now—another time, when you’ve been good.” He gave the child a light cuff on the head and went out, shutting the door after him. Mrs. Reeder almost laughed, the look of astonished consternation on the little boy’s face was so comical—he stood staring at the door, and he put an incredulous hand up to the side of his head.
“Uncle Philip hit me!” he said, slowly.
“A good thing too” Mrs. Reeder said briskly. “You must learn not to shout, nor to pull up plants. Did you want anything, Nannie?”
“Only to see if you had any messages wanting doing in the village, Madam.”
“Oh, no, thank you, Nannie; I was down before lunch.”
“Then we’ll just go and get our wool” Nannie Mackenzie said, and took herself and her charge off.
“Young Philip is getting to be a bit of a handful” Mrs. Reeder remarked. “Almost too much for Nannie Mack.”
“It has been such a mercy for him to be up here with all your children” the old lady said earnestly: “You have done a good thing there, Edina. Alone, he might have been spoilt; as it is, I don’t find him noticeably so. Does he get on all right with the others?”
“Oh yes, he’s really no trouble; they’ve got quite fond of him. It’s just that he’s so fearfully sharp, he’s taken Nannie Mack’s measure, and plays her up for the fun of it. I’m sure he didn’t pull up Rosina’s plant to vex Rosina, but to tease Nannie Mack. He’s really getting to be a proper little toughie!—he needs slapping down more often—and I mean slapping! Anyhow, if Julia’s coming back for good she can take over. He knows better than to try any nonsense with her!”
“Oh, does she not spoil him?” Mrs. Hathaway asked; she looked a little surprised.
“Not the least in the world! Why, did you think she did?” Edina asked, surprised in her turn.
“I know that the fear of spoiling him is a thing that’s constantly on her mind” the old lady replied.
“Well, she doesn’t—if anything I should say she goes a bit too far in the other direction” Edina said judgematically. “Of course a boy does need a father; that’s the normal way to keep their egos in balance.” She got up. “You for your shut-eye, Mrs. H.? I’m going to the bee-room to separate the last of the frame honey.”
Mrs. Hathaway got up too, collected her spectacles and her own copy of The Times, and set off on her rather slow progress towards her room and her afternoon rest. As she held the door open for her elderly friend—“Perhaps that’s what Julia has in mind” Edina said.
As the day for Julia’s arrival approached Mrs. Reeder displayed a quite unwonted degree of
fuss about the advent of this long-known and much-liked cousin, who since their childhood days had always treated Glentoran as a second home, dashing up from England whenever she wanted at very little notice, dashing away again when some family emergency or, quite as often, the British Intelligence Service called.
“I don’t think the Philipino had better come to the boat to meet Julia” she said one morning to Mrs. Hathaway.
“Oh, don’t you? He does usually, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, I know—but he bounces about and demonstrates so. I want it all to be quiet and easy, this time.”
“I see” said the old lady thoughtfully. “Then I suppose you won’t tell him beforehand that she’s coming? Otherwise he will be anything but quiet, if he isn’t allowed to go!”
“Yes—let it be a surprise, for once.”
“But what about Nannie Mack?”
“Oh, I shall tell her—and say I can’t take the child, so he’d better not know” Edina said firmly. And later that evening, in the day nursery, with young Philip safely in bed and asleep, she carried out this plan.
“Nannie, Mrs. Jamieson is coming up to stay again.”
“Oh, how nice, Madam. Is she coming soon?”
“Yes, the day after tomorrow—by the steamer. But someone else is coming that day too, and there won’t be all that much room in the car—so I think Master Philip had better not come to Tarbert to meet her this time.”
Nurse Mackenzie looked doubtful.
“It will put him in a terrible way if he isn’t allowed to go” she said rather gloomily. “But of course whatever you say, Madam.”
“Then don’t tell him; I shan’t, nor let the other children know; and I’ll tell Joanna not to mention it to Nannie Baird, or anyone.” Joanna was the daily housemaid.
“Very well, Madam.”
As she went downstairs—“Really, how ridiculous to have to plot and plan for the benefit of that tyrannous brat!” Edina said to herself. “It’s high time someone took him in hand. I hope this O’Brien person is as tough as hell, if Julia does think of marrying him.”
But tough as hell was hardly how Edina Reeder (or anyone else) would have described the small man whom she saw following Julia down the gangway off The Lord of the Isles a couple of days later. He was small—more than half-a-head shorter than tall Julia—and when introduced spoke in a low soft voice, with a rather marked West of Ireland accent; indeed his accent was the only marked thing about him. The mouse-brown hair, curling slightly above the ears where a hint of grey showed, the not-quite-brown, not-quite-hazel eyes, the wide mouth and blunt nose—everything was indeterminate, un-noticeable; an extreme contrast to Julia’s height and beauty, and her mass of arresting auburn-gold hair. Edina studied him with incredulous astonishment as he helped the blue-jerseyed porter to stow the luggage in the car; he was very quick and efficient about that, she noticed, and about tracking down and retrieving a missing suit-case of Julia’s. But how on earth? … that was her inner astonished question.
As they drove through the grey unbeautiful streets of the little town—“Where in the name of fortune do they get the name Macsporran from?” the newcomer enquired.
“I believe originally it was a euphemism for an illegitimate” Edina said.
“In Portugal they call them Espirito Santo” Julia put in.
At that, there came from the back seat of the car a burst of the most delicious laughter Mrs. Reeder had ever heard— rather high, bubbling, and prolonged; moreover, it was infectious—she found herself laughing too. And on the long drive back to Glentoran she became more and more pleased with her new guest; he was very observant, and constantly asked shrewd questions about the soil, and the crops.
“The roofs of your houses are so good” he remarked at one point. “Hardly any thatch.” (In fact he almost pronounced it “tatch.”) “Do the people put the slates on themselves? T’is rather a skilled job.”
“Only when one falls off, if the estate joiner is busy” Edina replied, a little puzzled.
“They don’t build their own houses, then?”
“Goodness no— we build the houses.”
“On their own holdings?”
“No, Gerald” Julia put in. “There are hardly any individual holdings down here—it’s all big estates. There are crofts up in the Islands, of course, Skye and the Lewes, but not down here.”
“Is that so?” He was silent, reflecting. “No wonder t’is all so neat and tidy, then; I haven’t seen a broken gate yet.”
“Nor an old bedstead put in to ‘bush out the gap’!” Julia responded merrily. “No—this isn’t at all like the County Mayo, Gerald.”
“Is this your land we’re on now?” O’Brien enquired of his hostess.
“Not yet—when we get over the next hill” she told him.
But when the car crossed the summit of the next hill, and that astonishing view of sea and islands and blue mountains broke upon them, Gerald O’Brien forgot about gates and roofs close at hand—he gave a sort of gasp, and then was silent, staring speechless out of the car window.
“It is a view, isn’t it? Didn’t I tell you?” Julia said, leaning back to him.
“It’s beyond all telling!” he answered simply. Edina was rather pleased; she set a good deal of store by that view herself.
Mrs. Reeder had made her dispositions with some care, with a view to the desired ease and quietness for young Philip’s encounter with his mother. “Let him be playing on the lawn—I’ll tell MacWhirter to put the croquet-hoops up” she told Nannie Mack. “We should be back at four or a little after. Then Mrs. Jamieson can see him at once, and play with him a bit, while the luggage is going in.” And she instructed the other nursery party to go down to the sawmill and collect scraps of bark, so essential to the success of log fires, and not be back before 4:30 at the earliest.
So when the car swung up the long drive and emerged from between trees onto the open stretch which culminated in a broad space of gravel in front of the house, the Philipino and Nannie were on the lawn. He stopped playing to watch it; then when he saw his mother get out, he flung down his little mallet and ran at her crying “Mummie! Mummie!” He clutched at her coat, pulling her down to reach and kiss her face. But after a couple of moments his mood changed; he let go of his mother and turned on Nannie Mack, who was approaching to greet her mistress—“Wicked Nannie! You didn’t take me to meet her!”—and started pummelling her with his little fists. Edina intervened. “Stop hitting Nannie, Philip. It was I who said you weren’t to come to the steamer.” At that piece of information the child picked up his croquet-mallet and set about Mrs. Reeder, crying “Wicked Aunt Ena! Wicked Aunt Ena!” Julia, in dismay, stepped hastily over and caught hold of the other end of the weapon—when suddenly, irrepressibly, Gerald O’Brien’s laugh burst out, as bubbling, gay, and infectious as before.
At the sound the child turned—for the first time he saw the stranger; he dropped the handle of the mallet, and stood staring at him. Then, forgetting his fury—“Oh, laugh again!” he said.
Gerald did so—in fact he couldn’t help himself—but as he went over to the little boy he said, in that soft voice— “Mrs. Reeder, I am so sorry!” And to the child—“I was wrong to laugh; t’is no laughing matter at all, a boy to be hitting the women; I’m ashamed of myself. I’ve said I’m sorry—what about you?”
“Sorry, Aunt Ena; sorry, Nannie” the child said at once, perfunctorily; then he turned to his mother. “Who is he?” he asked.
“He’s Mr. O’Brien” Julia said.
“Will he stay here?”
“For a day or two.”
“Now I’ve said I’m sorry, will he laugh again?”
“I shouldn’t think so, till you’ve given Aunt Ena and Nannie a nice kiss, and said that you’re dreadfully sorry you were so naughty” Julia said, severely. Obediently, the Philipino went through this ceremony; then the elders, helped by Joanna, busied themselves in taking the luggage indoors, and Nannie Mack in putting a
way the croquet things. “Bring over that ball, now” she told the child. “No, Mummie’s going to have her tea now; and so are you, when the others come up. You may see her after tea, if you’re good. Oh, I am ashamed of you, behaving like that in front of strangers! Whatever will Mr. O’Brien think of you?”
Poor Julia, over the usual ample tea in the hall, was secretly asking herself the same question. Philip Reeder’s immediate assumption that if she was bringing a man to Glentoran it could only mean one thing had in fact been not far off the truth—the question of marriage had been raised between her and Gerald O’Brien. But Julia had been guarded and hesitant; she had insisted, as an indispensable preliminary before anything was decided, that he should take a good look at what she called her “encumbrance”; he, for his part, was equally insistent that she should come over to Ireland and see what he had to offer in the way of an establishment and surroundings, especially human surroundings. It was the sensible, civilised attitude of two people already mature who though deeply drawn to one another, were no longer of an age to be blinded by sense-enchantment, nor at the mercy of the selfish recklessness of young love. Gerald had never married; the fiancée to whom as a very young man he had been passionately devoted had been killed in a riding accident a fortnight before the wedding, and till he met Julia with the O’Haras in Tangier the idea of marriage had never again loomed at all large in his mind. Now it did, with an extreme urgency; so for both of them this first encounter with all Julia’s closest friends and relations was a slightly nervous occasion. And beside her embarrassed distress at the Philipino’s having made such a poor showing at the very first moment, Julia during tea was watching Gerald’s effect on Mrs. Hathaway—Philip Reeder was out.
It all went quite smoothly, of course, except that when some caustic crack of Edina’s brought Gerald’s laugh out for the first time Mrs. Hathaway actually started a little; he turned to her at once with his ready “Oh I’m so sorry,” and in a matter of seconds she was laughing herself. When tea was over Julia looked at her watch.
“The creatures take such ages over their tea, they won’t be down for another half-an-hour at least” she said. “Edina, do you mind if I take Mr. O’Brien up the glen? The primroses are so lovely in this light.”
