Julia in Ireland

by Ann Bridge

  “Yes, by Jove! so ought we. Well goodbye, Mary. Try not to do anything else silly.”

  “Don’t be so rude, Michael! Goodbye—give my love to Helen.” She turned to the priest. “But you’ll see to it all, Father?”

  “I’ll do my best, your Ladyship. Goodbye. Keep that receipt safely.”

  Julia also said Goodbye, and they went out to the car.

  As they drove off—“If you don’t mind my asking, what did you put on that receipt?” the General asked.

  “Not at all. Thanks to you, I wrote a receipt for six bundles of used £5 notes, with a hundred notes in each bundle” Father O’Donnell said. “The bank will know if they are genuine or not.”

  “I can’t believe they aren’t” Julia said, startled at the idea.

  “All the same, jolly sharp of you, Father! Much better to be on the safe side. By the way, how are you going to get them to the bank?”

  “I was going to venture to ask you to add to your kindness and drop them in there for me on your way home. My account is in the Mayo and Leinster Bank, in the Mall,” the priest said.

  “Jolly good idea. That’s a hell of a lot of money to have in the house” O’Hara said. He thought for a moment or two, and then said, in a more doubtful tone—“But the bank will think it pretty funny, me paying 3,000 quid into your account.”

  “I’ll take it in” Julia volunteered. “They don’t know me by sight. You needn’t come into it at all, Michael.”

  “Pray don’t take it, if it is in any way inconvenient” the Father said. “If you could wait exactly two-and-a-half minutes at the Presbytery, I will give Mrs. Jamieson a covering note to the manager, explaining that I am sending it by messenger.”

  This plan was duly carried out. Julia, carrying her rich parcel (still wrapped in newspaper) prudently asked to see the manager at the bank, and when asked gave her own name, adding that she was staying with Mr. Gerald O’Brien at Rossbeg. Gerald was sure to have to come into it sooner or later, and, as she had foreseen, his name opened all doors. It was close on lunch-time, but the manager was still in, and received her politely—always glad to do anything for a friend of Mr. O’Brien’s, he said.

  “It’s not for me, or him,” Julia said, handing over the priest’s note. “Father O’Donnell asked me to bring this in, as I was passing”—and she put the parcel down on the manager’s desk.

  “Always happy to do anything for Father O’Donnell too” the manager said cheerfully, opening the note. But when he also opened the parcel his jaw fairly dropped.

  “Merciful Heavens! This must be three thousand pounds!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes—if they’re all genuine” Julia said calmly. “I think he wanted you to check on that. Could you?”

  “I will of course.” He looked at the note again. “But he doesn’t say whether it’s to go into his Current or his Deposit account.”

  “The Father was in rather a hurry” Julia said, “to take the chance of sending it in by a messenger at once, as I was coming. How long would it take to get it out if it was put on Deposit?”

  “A week is the normal rule, but if the Father was in a hurry, he could have it in a cupla days.”

  “Then I should put it on Deposit,” said money-minded Julia. It struck her that the interest on what seemed to her this enormous sum, even if it was only in for a week or two, would bring in at least a few shillings for candles or some other Church expense.

  “I am afraid I must ask you to wait while I count the notes” the manager said.

  “That’s all right. May I smoke?”

  “Yes, certainly.” He pushed an ashtray towards her and began his counting. When he had finished he put the six bundles in a safe, and turned to her again. “Is there any reason to suppose that they are not genuine?” he asked. He was obviously seething with discreetly controlled curiosity.

  “I have no idea” Julia said airily. “As I say, I’m only a messenger. No, I should do whatever you do, and write and let the Father know. Goodbye, and thank you.” She hurried out, to avoid any further questions.

  As they drove on up the Mall—“What did he say?” O’Hara asked.

  “He wanted to know if it was to go on Current or Deposit—the Father hadn’t said in his note. I told him on Deposit” Julia said.

  “Don’t suppose Mary will leave it in long enough to earn much interest!” the General said. “Still, it was a sound idea. Didn’t he want to know anything else?”

  “I think he wanted to know a whole lot more!” Julia said, laughing. “But I didn’t tell him. I just gave my name and said I was staying with Gerald—I thought you would prefer that.”

  “Never prefer telling lies—that was a lie!” O’Hara said severely.

  “Oh well!” Julia was quite unruffled. “At least if he thinks it all pretty screwy he’ll connect it with Gerald and not with you.” They were passing the premises of Messrs. Walshe & Walshe at that moment; Julia slowed down and pulled in to the kerb.

  “What’s up?” O’Hara asked.

  “D’you mind going home alone?” Julia said. “I think I’d better go down and see Gerald right away, and tell him what goes on.”

  “How will you get down to Rossbeg?”

  “I’ll get Terry to take me in his lunch-hour, and Gerald can bring me back” Julia said. She got out as she spoke. “The priest said Lady Browne ought to get a lawyer onto this, and I’m sure he’s right—and the sooner the better, I should say.”

  “Well, I agree with you there” the General said, squeezing across into the driving seat. “All right.”

  “Tell Helen I’m sorry” Julia called, as he drove away.

  Chapter 7

  When julia walked in to Walshe & Walshe’s establishment, and as before asked for Mr. White, she was shown into the waiting-room—“Mr. White has a gentleman with him” she was told. She sent up her name, saying firmly—“It is rather urgent”—and a moment later there was a great clatter on the stairs, and not only Terence but Gerald came into the waiting room.

  “Splendid!” Gerald said. “We were wondering how to get hold of you—Lady Helen said you were out with the old fella, when we rang up. Have you anything fresh for us?”

  “Yes, lots. But I can’t tell you here” Julia said, glancing at the three or four rather drab occupants of the rather drab room.

  “No, of course not. Let’s go to have lunch at the pub” Terence said. So they crossed the river by the nearest bridge and settled down in the dining-room of the hotel at a table near a window; over drinks, which he and Terence brought up with them from the bar—“Now, let’s have it” Gerald said.

  “Well, she’s not going to sell that land after all” Julia pronounced.

  “Merciful heaven!” and “Lawks” the two men exclaimed simultaneously. “How on earth did you bring that off?” O’Brien asked.

  “Oh, I had nothing to do with it” Julia disclaimed. “General O’Hara told her that O’Rahilly was the person she was selling it to, and the sort of thing he was proposing to build on it; she didn’t much like that, but it was the priest who really did it, I’m sure.”

  “Father O’Donnell? How did he come into it?”

  “We overtook him on the road, and the General made him get in and hear all about Billy’s ghastly schemes—we’d gone round by Lettersall so as to be absolutely au fait with the present use of the land. And when the Father heard it all from Michael, and that he was actually on his way to remonstrate with Lady Browne, he suggested coming along.”

  “Poor Grandmother!” said Terence, laughing. “I must say that pair would make a formidable team to stand up to.”

  “What makes you think it was the priest who really made her change her mind? He’s such a gentle creature” Gerald said.

  “He wasn’t gentle with her!” Julia said. “He told her that if she took money for land that was going to be used for purposes such as Billy’s, she’d be living on immoral earnings, as good as. That really shook her; she’d been very stubborn before
.”

  Terence was still incredulous.

  “She may have said she wasn’t going to complete the sale, but has she done anything about it?”

  “Well, she went out and fetched the deposit money—you were quite right, the notes were in the stove in the hall, Terence; the desk was covered with ash when she undid them! —and gave them to the priest, and asked him to return them to Mrs. Martin, and to get ‘the document’ back and tear it up.” She turned to O’Brien. “The Father told her she ought to get her lawyer to handle it, Gerald; but she begged him to see to it all for her, and in the end I think he thought he’d better go while the going was good.”

  “He was perfectly right” O’Brien said. “Where is the money now, do you know?”

  “Yes, I’ve just paid it into his account in the Ulster and Mayo Bank. He asked us to bring it in, as we were coming, and it was so bulky.”

  Terence burst out laughing—he had been giggling softly ever since Julia mentioned the ashes on the desk.

  “That must have given the tellers at the Ul. and M. a shock!” he said—“three thousand paid in in cash, and from the poorest priest in Mayo! They’ll be talking about it for weeks.”

  “Don’t be foolish” Julia said repressively. “Of course I took it to the manager—I used your name for that, Gerald; I knew you’d have to be dragged into it sooner or later.”

  “You did quite right. But wasn’t Mr. O’Toole a little curious?”

  “As curious as you like, I think; but he behaved very well. He counted it and put it in his safe. Only I thought I’d better come and tell you at once—well, I meant to get Terence to drive me down to you, but here you are—such luck!”

  “What have you done with the General?”

  “Oh, he’s gone home.”

  There was a pause while the waiter brought their first course. Then Terence said—“Well, now what happens? Does the Father write a cheque for £3,000, made out to Mrs. Martin? Not even the manager will be able to hush that up; it’ll be all over Mayo in no time.”

  “We must give it a little thought” O’Brien said. “We don’t know for certain who the cheque ought to be made out to, for one thing; Mrs. Martin may only have been a messenger, as Julia has just been. I think I had better see O’Toole after lunch and ask him to hold on to the notes pro tem. I don’t know that I think local gossip all that important, but notes are more anonymous than a cheque.”

  “And how do we recover the famous ‘document’?” Terence asked.

  “Ah, how indeed? I think I’d better nip over to Ballina and find out if the Land Commission has any news of it, as soon as I can.”

  “And if they haven’t?” Julia enquired.

  “Then it will mean tackling Mrs. Martin, I suppose—or O’Rahilly. It is all very complicated” O’Brien said, sighing a little.

  “Grandmother is apt to be a perfect mine of complications” Terence observed, grinning.

  “Oh well, don’t let it spoil our lunch. Eat first, worry later. Julia, wouldn’t you rather go on with sea-trout than switch to mutton? I would.”

  Before they parted—in the end it was Terence who drove Julia back to Rostrunk; Gerald had an appointment he couldn’t break—she had promised to go down and spend another day at Rossbeg at the week-end. “You haven’t seen the garden properly yet; only peeped at it” the man said. “There are all sorts of things I want to ask you about.”

  “I thought you knew all there was to know about gardening” Julia said thoughtlessly—this was while Terence was fetching his car.

  “Even if I did, it wouldn’t tell me what I want to know, which are your preferences” he said, pressing her arm.

  That last remark made Julia rather distraite on the homeward drive and little disposed to respond to Terence’s wisecracking about his grandmother’s activities. She had been wondering whether it would be fair to Gerald to agree to marry him if any element of securing a stepfather for the Philipino entered into her decision; now, in the face of his trustful acquiescence in her delays, she began to wonder if it would be fair not to marry him on any terms—or at least if she ought not to cease these visits to Rossbeg, with all the happy planning on his part that they involved.

  So it was in rather a depressed and doubtful frame of mind that she set off, some days later, in Helen O’Hara’s little car on the drive southwards. She drove rapidly to and through Martinstown, but, out on the road beyond, almost unconsciously she went more slowly, the uncertainty in her mind causing her to reduce her speed. Even so, she presently began to overhaul a vehicle in front of her, which caught her attention by its very peculiar appearance. It looked like a hearse, with glass sides and back; but she couldn’t see what was in it, because inside the glass there were wooden boards. Certainly it was not performing the normal functions of a hearse, for it was rattling along at a fair pace; Julia was perfectly familiar with the desperate scurry of all motorists in Oldport to get out of the town when a funeral was seen descending the hill from the Church, to avoid the one and a half miles at a foot’s pace, in bottom gear, behind the mourning procession, till the turning to the cemetery was reached —to overtake a funeral in the West of Ireland is so unheard-of as really to be impossible. But here were no mourners, either in vehicles or on foot, so she decided that it would be quite in order to pass the hearse, and accelerated a little in order to do so. It was a fairly straight stretch of road, with no incoming traffic; Julia hooted gently, to give warning of her intention. But just as she drew level with it the hearse, instead of maintaining its course on the left of the road, suddenly swung over to the right; Julia swerved too, but she couldn’t avoid it altogether—the two vehicles scraped together with a nasty metallic crunch.

  Both pulled up, and switched off their engines. Julia jumped out, and then saw what had caused the hearse to swerve—half a dozen cows emerging onto the road from a lane concealed between high hedges. But she cared less about the cause of the accident than about Helen’s car—the front left wing was slightly dented, and the paint scratched. A young man with black hair, followed by a much older one, scrambled down off the hearse, and came to inspect the damage.

  “Ye’d best back down a piece—nothing can pass, the way ye are,” the older man said calmly. This made sense, and Julia acted on the suggestion—only she drove a few yards forward, and pulled in in front of the hearse; the two men came up to her again, and the young one rubbed the scratched paint with an enquiring finger.

  “That will paint up all right, when it’s hammered out” he said.

  “Yes—but it isn’t my car” Julia said distressfully. “Didn’t you hear me hoot?”

  “I did that—but I couldn’t be ramming the cows.”

  “Whose car is it, then?” the older man asked, studying Julia with interest as he spoke.

  “Lady Helen O’Hara’s.”

  “Ah—I was thinking it had a look of Lady’s car,” he said. “I’d sooner damage any car in Mayo than that one.”

  “Well, it is damaged” said Julia bluntly. She opened her bag, took out a card, and handed it to the elderly man. “Now, could I have your name and address?”

  “ ’Tisn’t my car—’tis Mrs. Keane’s, his mother’s” he said, indicating the black-haired young man.

  “Then can I have your name?” Julia said, propping a notebook on the bonnet of the car; she stood, a silver pencil poised in her hand, while the young man stared at her card.

  But all this was much too rapid and businesslike for the West of Ireland. Having established that it was “Lady’s” car that had been dented and scratched—the hearse appeared quite undamaged—they wanted to know what relation she was of the O’Haras and seemed disappointed that she was only a friend; then, where she was bound for? On hearing that it was to Rossbeg, a chorus of praise for “Mr. O’Brien” —“there’s no better lawyer in the West!” “Is it a law-case ye’ll be seeing him about?” Julia laughed and said no, she was going to see his garden; all this interest and curiosity was somehow so gently
and openly expressed as to be completely disarming. Eventually she felt it would be in order for her to enquire about the contents of the hearse, which still aroused her curiosity—she was fascinated to learn that Paddy Keane and the older man had been “after taking the sow to the boar” in it; it belonged to the undertaker in Martinstown. “We’d best be fetching her back, Paddy” said the older man. “Mr. Browne has a funeral this evening.”

  “No rush” Paddy responded, and insisted that Julia should come up to the farm and have “a droppeen”; it was only “a small piece” along the road. So, the hearse leading the way, they drove there; a narrow lane led up to a substantial whitewashed house with farm buildings alongside and a neat garden with a couple of rose-bushes in it in front; two round stone-built gate-posts, washed a snowy white, supported the garden gate. Julia ran the car into a field gateway opposite the garden, whence she judged she could back out to return to the road, and get out; a flagged path led from those charming white gate-posts up to the door, which Paddy opened—however, to her surprise he walked through it in front of her, and announced—“Here’s a lady to see ye, Mother.”

  Julia followed him into a large room. A dark-haired woman rose from a seat by the hearth—the usual open turf fire, with the usual large round metal pot hanging over it—and came forward to greet her. Mrs. Keane was not exactly handsome, though there was force and intelligence in her rather dark face, but—what instantly struck Julia—also an extraordinary expression of benevolence and sweetness. “You’re heartily welcome” she said—and looked as though she meant it. “Will you not sit down and take a cup of tea?” —she drew forward a chair as she spoke.

  “No, not tea, Mother—the lady’d be the better of some of the hard stuff” Paddy pronounced.

  “Then ye must take the bucket to the spring-well” Mrs. Keane replied. “There’s none fresh or cold in it.” As she spoke she took up a bucket from the floor and emptied it into the huge pot hanging over the fire, before handing it to her son, who went out with it.

  The elderly man now came in, seated himself on a settle beyond the fire, and lit a cigarette. He began to explain to the mistress of the house how “the lady” had been trying to pass the hearse when Paddy “shwung out, the way he wouldn’t run into MacNally’s cows,” and they had collided. “But ‘tis Lady’s car she was driving—she does be staying in Rostrunk—and it’s dunted.”