Julia in Ireland

by Ann Bridge

  “That’s a dodgy contraption of Mr. O’Brien’s—I don’t know another like it” Mr. Macllroy observed to Julia.

  “What’s it for?” she asked.

  “To keep his seeds and bulbs and all like that in.”

  From a larger drawer at one end Gerald now took out a couple of tough brown manila envelopes and wrote on them; then from each of the two extended boxes he took a handful of bulbs, which he placed in the envelopes.

  “There” he said, handing them to Mr. Macllroy—“I knew you’d be craving for some of those wild paper-whites, and the little scillas. See if you can flower them.”

  “That’s terrible good of you, Mr. O’Brien” the man said. From each of the envelopes in turn he emptied a few of the bulbs into the palm of his hand and studied them, gloatingly. “Terrible good” he repeated, replacing them. Then—“ ’Twas among heaths you say they were growing?” he said. “They should do in peat, so.”

  “The scillas, yes, peat with a good bit of sand—where they grow the sand off the shore blows a long way inland. Not the paper-whites—I should try them in a rather poor sandy loam, with plenty of stones. The soil of Morocco isn’t at all rich, mostly, except where it’s been tilled for centuries —the whole place is sand and stones.”

  “Well, I must be getting along” Macllroy said, stuffing the envelopes into his already distended pockets. “Ye’ve got the place very nice” he added, walking out into the middle of the garden again; “and ye’re making a good job of that lad”—he indicated a youth who was hand-weeding a bed of lettuce seedlings down at the bottom. “I’m awfully thankful to ye, Mr. O’Brien,” he said again. “I’ll ask about the loganbushes, but there’s no rush—early autumn’s the best time to shift them.” He touched his hat and went off.

  “What a sweet man” Julia said, as the gate clanged behind the instructor.

  “Yes, Macllroy’s a splendid fellow” Gerald agreed. He looked at her sideways a little quizzically. “But he came to get those bulbs, y’know.”

  “Do you always bring him back something from your trips abroad?” she asked.

  “Well, mostly” he admitted.

  “Then you can’t blame him; it’s your own fault” she said gaily. “I can see that you probably spoil everyone within miles of you!”

  “Not children” he said, with sudden earnestness. “Never a child, Julia.”

  His emphasis made her blush.

  “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t, precious Gerald” she said.

  Chapter 8

  Just as she was getting into the car to drive off, Julia suddenly remembered something.

  “Oh, by the way, did you go and see the Land Commission people?” she asked. “And had the ‘document’ got to them?”

  “I couldn’t be sure” Gerald said, leaning on the car window as she seated herself. “By bad luck the man I know really well at Ballina was away—the Commission are as silent as clams about everything, but if he’d been there I think he would have told me, especially as old Mother B. is a client of mine. Even using that lever, all they would say was that they had no knowledge of any such application; but I wasn’t at all sure that the men I saw were speaking the truth. I think, darling, it might’n’t be a bad plan if you were to pop over to Achill again and call on your pretty friend, and see if she’s got it.”

  “Would she tell me if she had?” Julia asked doubtfully.

  “You can but try! At least you might be able to decide if she was lying, if she said she hadn’t.”

  “Can I come completely clean with her? Tell her about finding the old lady counting the notes, and her giving them back to Michael?”

  “No, I shouldn’t tell her the last part; that might decide Billy and his pals to try to re-activate her. But about seeing her—Mrs. Martin—driving away, and finding the old lady counting the money just after, certainly.”

  “Right-oh” Julia said inelegantly. “I don’t promise much in the way of results, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, I feel sure Billy will have got hold of it by now, or his pal in Dublin.”

  “Well, if Billy’s got it, we must think again. At least it would be a hard fact, which is what we’re so short on. Oh” he said, as she switched on the engine—“don’t on any account tell Mrs. M. that the old lady wants to cancel—just that she wants to check the acreage again before naming a final price.”

  “Right-oh” Julia repeated, and drove away.

  As she passed back through Martinstown she stopped at Paddy Kelly’s garage and showed him the damage to the car wing. Kelly, a tall and magnificently handsome man, examined the car carefully and thoroughly, but agreed that no harm had been done except to the wing, and gave what seemed to Julia an extremely modest estimate for repairing it. “But I’ll not be able to do it for a week or two yet; I have a shocking lot of work waiting. Tell Lady I’ll do it as soon as I can.”

  At Rostrunk Julia drove the car straight into the garage, and then went and sought out Helen—as she had hoped, her hostess was still in the garden.

  “Helen, come and look at your car, there’s an angel; I am most frightfully sorry, but I’ve dunted one wing.”

  “A bad dunt?” Lady Helen asked calmly, getting up from her kneeling-mat and wiping her little hand-fork on the palm of her glove.

  “Not very, I don’t think; Paddy Kelly looked at it, and said he could put it right for about three quid—which of course I’ll pay.”

  “The insurance can do that—I lost my no-claims bonus last year” Lady Helen said. “Who was the other party, who hit you?”

  “That’s just it—it was two parties” Julia said. “The object I collided with was the Martinstown hearse, which belongs to a Mr. Browne, but it was being driven by a most uncouth creature called Paddy Keane.”

  “Oh, one of the Keane louts”—Julia was delighted to hear Gerald’s so appropriate expression echoed by her friend. “Was the sow hurt?” Lady Helen asked.

  “No, she was still visiting the boar. Here you are” Julia said, as they entered the garage.

  Helen O’Hara switched on two or three electric lights and examined the car.

  “No, that’s nothing” she said easily. “In fact I shall cut a few bob off Paddy’s price. You can’t have hit the hearse, or the hearse hit you, at all hard.”

  “No, it was more a sort of graze.” Julia explained what had happened. “I am most frightfully sorry” she said again.

  “Not to worry. But there is one thing” she said, getting into the car and switching on the engine. “I’ll take her out now, and come in and say I’ve coshed the wing—then we shan’t have any trouble with Michael when you want to use her again.”

  “Helen, you’re an angel!”

  “Just put the kneeler and gloves, and the fork, in the toolshed” Lady Helen said. “I shan’t be any time.”

  “Just one minute—I may not be able to tell you later. That sweet Mrs. Keane at the farm sent you all sorts of messages, and said how sorry she was.”

  “Oh yes—she is a dear person.”

  “Wait” Julia said urgently. “If I see Michael, where shall I say you’ve gone?”

  “Clever girl! Say up to the Post Office.”

  “Right.”

  Thanks to this sensible ruse of Lady Helen’s, there was no trouble with the General when Julia borrowed the small car a couple of days later to go and see Mrs. Martin, though he spent a good deal of the intervening time scolding his wife for her carelessness in having the supposed accident, and cross-examining her about the other vehicle involved.

  “Darling, I keep telling you it was a lorry, and it swerved because Affie King’s cows ran out of the lane. He couldn’t help it and nor could I.”

  “Can’t think why you didn’t take his number” O’Hara grumbled. Julia admired and pitied Helen sincerely, and felt very guilty; but she dared not confess, as she would have liked, because there was a job to be done, for which she had to have the car.

  She decided this time
not to give notice of her visit in advance, hoping to be able to “bounce” Mrs. Martin into giving her the document, or at least into an admission of its whereabouts, if she had passed it on to Billy. But this plan did not work out particularly well. When she reached the “shack” there was another car drawn up on the space in front of it, and, when Mrs. Martin opened the door to her knock and ushered her into the living-room, standing in front of the fire was the same thickset middle-aged man whom Julia had seen hugging Mrs. Martin so energetically at the station on the day of her arrival, whom Lady Helen had identified for her as “one of our poets.” So she was not surprised when the fair woman said “I forget if you know Mr. O’Rahilly? Billy, this is Mrs. Jamieson.”

  “No, we’ve never met” Julia said, holding out her hand. “How do you do?”

  “Billy, it’s a quarter of twelve—isn’t it time for drinks?” Mrs. Martin said. The man obediently went to the high shelf and fetched down several bottles, which he put on the table; then he went through to the kitchen and returned with the bowl of ice-cubes—he was evidently quite at home in the house, and accustomed to doing these chores. But he was not away long enough for Julia to put her question to Mrs. Martin without his hearing it, and she had to decide whether or not to ask it in front of him. She made up her mind to risk doing exactly that; and while the drinks were being organised, and she was refusing gin in any form—“Billy makes a marvellous dry Martini”—and accepting ice in her whiskey, she was planning in her head the most casual-sounding form of words in which to put it.

  “Oh, Mrs. Martin,” she said presently, “old Lady Browne wants you to let her have back that lease, or receipt, or whatever it was that she signed for you the other day—she wants to check the acreage, or something.”

  “How in all the earth do you know she signed a lease for me?” Mrs. Martin exclaimed, startled—Julia, watching O’Rahilly, saw him scowl at her. “Or rather, what makes you think I did?” she amended.

  “Oh, she told me so. I got there just after you left—I’d gone to look at a fur coat she was talking of selling; she was counting the money, and she’d left both windows open, so the fivers were blowing all over the drive!—I picked a lot of them up for her” Julia said easily. “Anyway, I’m sure you won’t mind letting her see it again, will you? You didn’t give her a copy, did you?”

  O’Rahilly, still looking rather cross, took over.

  “Mrs. Jamieson, what did you say Lady Browne wants to see the lease again for? To check what acreage?”

  “Of the strip of land below Lettersall that Mrs. Martin’s buying from her. I imagine—I don’t know—to decide the final price; the £3,000 was only a deposit, wasn’t it?” Julia replied, still easily. “Anyway, I suppose ‘lease’ is the wrong word, as Mrs. Martin is buying it outright.”

  O’Rahilly looked more sour than ever when Julia came out so pat with the figure of three thousand pounds; clearly he hadn’t expected her to be so well informed, and in such detail, and didn’t much like it.

  “She’s a very old lady” Julia pursued, she hoped soothingly; “and old people don’t take things in very quickly, and then they forget.”

  O’Rahilly didn’t appear particularly soothed; he went on scowling. Julia turned to Mrs. Martin again.

  “Anyhow you can’t possibly have any objection to letting her see it again, surely? It’s such a natural thing for her to want.”

  “I haven’t got it any more—Billy has it” Mrs. Martin said, distressfully.

  “Oh.” Julia put on an air of surprise at this. “Well, Mr. O’Rahilly, then you can take it” she said smoothly. “Can’t you?”

  “Did she ask you to get it?” he enquired, rather inquisitorially, Julia thought.

  “Not me personally—she asked the priest to get it. But Father O’Donnell has no car, so I said I would come over; Rostrunk is so near” Julia said, silkily. “But of course your house is nearer still.”

  “Well in fact I haven’t got it any more; it’s with my lawyers in Dublin,” O’Rahilly said, but less disagreeably.

  “Oh, well they can send it back to her, can’t they? No trouble about that” Julia said, disliking him more and more every moment. She turned again to Mrs. Martin. “I wonder you didn’t want Lady Browne to have a lawyer with her, over a deal like this” she said, still smoothly. “She is rather old to conduct business by herself, isn’t she? I mean, she didn’t even ask you for a copy of what she’d signed, which it would be the normal thing for her to have.”

  Mrs. Martin looked more distressed than ever.

  “I was just taking the money for Billy” she blurted out. “I didn’t really know exactly what was on the paper myself. He just said she was to read it, and sign it, and I …”

  O’Rahilly interrupted her brusquely.

  “Let’s leave all that, Sally. I don’t imagine Mrs. Jamieson is particularly interested in all those details. Indeed I’m not really quite clear as to how she comes into this business at all.”

  Oh aren’t you, boy? And I daresay you’d a great deal rather I didn’t! Julia thought to herself. But aloud what she said was—“Oh, didn’t I make myself clear, Mr. O’Rahilly? I am carrying out a commission laid on me by Father O’Donnell of Lettersall, at Lady Browne’s request. In fact her lawyer was present when she made that request; and he also heard me undertake to carry it out, as I have the use of a car, and the priest hasn’t. I am in no doubt at all about my position.” She paused, to see what response O’Rahilly would make to this; in fact he made none, but to get up and pour himself another drink, which he started to gulp down nervously, without offering to refill anyone else’s glass. “But can I have your assurance that your lawyers will return the paper which Lady Browne signed to her forthwith, with a copy? If not, I shall have to tell Father O’Donnell so, and no doubt he will put the whole matter into the hands of Lady Browne’s lawyers.”

  “Oh, do say yes, Billy” Mrs. Martin urged him. “We don’t want a lot of legal bother, or any fuss.”

  “I am sure that would be your wisest course” Julia said, as the man still remained silent, continuing to drink whiskey.

  “Very well—I’ll tell the lawyers to send it back at once” O’Rahilly said at length. He emptied his glass. “Well, I’d better be getting along” he said. “Goodbye, Mrs. Jamieson— ’bye, Sally. Thanks for the drink.” He went off.

  “I’m sorry I had to press Mr. O’Rahilly so,” Julia said. “I wonder why he should even hesitate about letting the old lady check the acreage again—it seems the most natural thing in the world that she should.”

  “Billy’s set his heart so terribly on getting that land—I think that’s why” Mrs. Martin said. “And having that paper signed seemed to make it all certain—I think he’s just simply nervous about it.” She still looked rather distressed.

  “All the same, I wonder he let you take over the money and get her to sign it. I mean, you’re a stranger here and couldn’t be expected to know how wrong it was to let an elderly person like Lady Browne sign such a document without her lawyer’s advice, and without giving her a copy.”

  “Why wrong?” Mrs. Martin asked—but more curiously than anything else.

  “Well, morally it was quite unfair; but legally, her lawyer says a document signed in such circumstances wouldn’t hold up in a court of law for a moment. I don’t suppose her signature was even witnessed, was it? You couldn’t witness it, as an interested party; and I doubt if old Annie can sign her name!” Julia said briskly. She thought it just as well to make Mrs. Martin aware of the legal position, as no doubt it would get passed on to the horrid Billy, and make him less liable to run out on his undertaking to return the paper.

  “No, of course I didn’t understand all that” Sally Martin said. “I’m sorry if what I did was wrong, I was just trying to help Billy. But you and I can go on being friends, can’t we?” she said, impulsively.

  “Yes, we can and we will” Julia replied, warmly. She kissed the fair woman. “I must be off now, or I
shall be late for lunch.” She hastened out.

  She stopped in Mulranny on her way back and put a call through to Gerald’s office from the call-box in the hotel—he was in.

  “What luck?” he asked at once.

  “None. You-know-who was there too!”

  “Was he, begob? So what did you do?”

  “Asked her for it in front of him. She said he’d got it, so I asked him to take it back, or bring it to me to take back.”

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “Said his lawyers in Dublin had got it. Very awkward, he was; he is a nasty bit of work, I must say.”

  “How did you end up?”

  “Oh, I said if it wasn’t sent back I should have to tell the Father, and he would put her lawyers on to it! He didn’t relish that idea at all, and in the end he did promise that he would have it posted back to the old party, with a copy. Whether he will or not, you can probably guess better than I can.”

  “He will if he’s sufficiently frightened. Was he frightened?”

  “I think so—he kept on slugging down whiskey.”

  “Yes, that sounds like fright. Well, we must wait and see. I’m sorry you had such a disagreeable time, dearest.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mind. I don’t mind being tough with people as nasty as that” Julia said cheerfully.

  “When do I see you again?” Gerald asked. “Can you come this week-end?”

  “I should think so—I’ll let you know.” She was thinking of how she had been wondering, the previous week-end, of whether she ought not to curtail these visits to Rossbeg, until she had come to a decision about Gerald.

  “Sunday better than Saturday, if it’s equally good for you,” he said.

  “I’ll let you know” Julia repeated. “ ‘Bye.” She rang off.

  But before the week-end a fresh development took place which rather pushed Julia’s and Gerald’s personal concerns into the background. Father O’Donnell rang up Rostrunk and asked for the General; both the O’Haras were out for the day—Julia took the call.