by Sara Seale
“Joe does, and Tom Blake and the, Sullivan girls when they’re at home, and there’s old Major Yates who loves to come to supper when his gout isn’t too bad.”
“Oh, Sarah!” Kathy’s gentle voice was impatient. “Are the local vet and a gouty old man enough for you?”
“I hadn’t thought,” Sarah said gently. “But I imagined that Joe was enough for you.”
“Joe! I’ve known him all my life! I never have opportunities of meeting anyone else—neither do you, only you don’t seem to mind. If we’d had money—”
“Well”—Sarah held up the letter and kissed it—“Miss Daisy Dearlove represents money, or some of it. Enough like her filling Dun Rury, darling, and you could travel, have, pretty frocks, and conquer the world.”
Kathy’s mood passed.
“But not—not Miss Dearlove, Sarah?” she faltered, and Sarah laughed, scrambling to her feet.
“Of course not. She sounds quite frightful. Don’t you worry, Kathy, this is only the beginning. Letters will come pouring in now and we can take our pick. All those poor starving English! It’s a pity Uncle B. wouldn’t put ‘unlimited whisky’ in the advertisement. That would have fetched the kind of person we want. Come on, let’s go home.”
But letters from England did not come pouring in. There were, in fact, only three. Miss Dearlove’s, a couple with four children wanting reduced terms in view of their numbers, and someone signing himself A. G. Flint who was recovering from a breakdown and wanted nothing but quiet and seclusion.
“But I can’t understand it,” Sarah kept saying as each day Willie-the-Post brought them nothing but bills and catalogues. “I thought the English were pouring into Ireland with their stomachs simply flapping. Even the three we’ve had don’t mention food, and A. G. Flint, anyhow, sounds as if he wants building up.”
“Perhaps he’s a vegetarian and lives on nuts,” said Joe with unusual levity. His father remarked more seriously that it was the end of the summer, and holidays were over, and there was always the possibility that anyone answering, their advertisement now might possibly stop the winter, which would be better than a series of summer visitors. “In fact,” he said, tapping Mr. Flint’s brief, typewritten enquiry, “this chap definitely says if the place suits him he’s prepared to stop several months.”
“Quiet and seclusion,” said Danny suspiciously. “What does he mean by that?”
“He states his needs quite clearly. All meals in his room, for which he is, of course, prepared to pay extra.”
“He doesn’t sound very sociable,” said Aunt Em.
“Well we don’t need sociable lodgers,” Sarah said. “We only need their money. How much extra could we ask, Uncle B.?”
“It depends on what he expects for his money. Another guinea a week—perhaps more.”
“An invalid—well, I don’t know—” Aunt Em sounded dubious. “A breakdown might mean anything. You don’t suppose, Brian, he could be—well, not quite right in the head?”
“He definitely states he is not an invalid,” Brian replied, scanning the letter.
“You could always write and ask him,” Joe suggested with a twinkle, and Sarah giggled.
“Dear Sir, would you kindly inform us as to the state of your mind?” she said, and Danny, his eyes solemn behind his newly mended spectacles, added:
“Dear Sir, are you bats?”
Kathy looked at them disapprovingly.
“I think you’re all horrid,” she said. “He’s probably a poor old gentleman crossed in love.”
“And you could smooth his brow and read him poetry,” laughed Sarah. “I don’t think we want him. He sounds pernickety and a nuisance. Oh, dear! And we can’t have Ma and Pa and the four children; they’d take up too much room and it wouldn’t pay at reduced terms. That leaves Daisy—Uncle B., we can’t have Daisy sharing her lonely life with strangers all over the house.”
“Well, Sarah, I don’t think you’ve much choice,” Brian said, pushing a hand through his thick grey hair. “I agree the family wouldn’t be a paying proposition, so we’ll write them off, but you won’t get any more answers now, I’m afraid. I suggest you give Mr. Flint and Miss Dearlove a trial.”
“What, both of them!” exclaimed Sarah, looking stricken.
“Why not? They sound respectable and, after all, you can always get rid of them if it doesn’t work. You won’t see much of the old gentleman from all accounts, and with his extras you would net about twelve guineas a week, and that would be a big help.”
Sarah rubbed her nose, then sighed.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said at last. “Well, if they both turn out to be queer in the head, Uncle B., you’ll have to come with a plain van and remove them for us.”
While Kathy’s pupils played scales in the snug under her guidance, Sarah and Aunt Em inspected bedrooms, trying to decide what furniture could best be spared from each. The disused rooms were singularly bare. In fact the room they had chosen for Miss Dearlove boasted only a bed and a large double washstand.
“I don’t remember that we sold so much, do you, Aunt Em?” Sarah said, chewing the backs of her knuckles.
“Well, dear, one doesn’t notice, does one?” her aunt replied vaguely. “And I think the Sheraton chest of drawers was moved into Danny’s room.”
“Oh, good—then it can be moved back again. I remember now. The fake chest was sold by mistake and fetched nothing. The wardrobe can come out of the small dressing room, and there are lots of chairs and little tables and things in the drawing room. We’ll have to dot them over the bare places in the carpet. What can we hang over that discolored patch on the wall? Do you think she’d like that rather sickening picture of elves sitting on toadstools that used to hang in the nursery?”
“Perhaps if she writes stories for children she would. Op, the whole, dear, I think it would be better if you gave this room to Mr. Flint and the nursery to Miss Dearlove. So much more suitable, don’t you think?”
“No.” Sarah’s voice was decided. “Mr. Flint is sick or old or something. He sounds fussy and he’s going to pay more. The nursery’s much the nicest room in the house and it looks over the lough.”
They moved across the landing and stood looking into the high long room filled with the morning sunlight. Nursery rhymes repeated themselves in a faded pattern on the wallpaper, painted cupboards still held nursery china, and the shelves nursery books. But the table, covered with a worn rep cloth, was a fine walnut period piece, and the faded Aubusson carpet, marred by inkstains, had once graced the drawing room.
“It’s funny, isn’t it, how muddled our furniture always is,” said Sarah. “I can remember we used to do our lessons at a Chippendale bureau that fetched a huge price when it was sold.”
“Yes, dear, your father had little sense of fitness,” Aunt Em replied and thought of Kathleen who had so lovingly collected her period pieces, trying to bring grace to this barren house.
“All the stuff from father’s room can be moved in here. It’s solid and masculine, and there’s a comfortable armchair,” Sarah said, wandering over to the three long windows which overlooked the water.
“Wouldn’t it be much simpler to put Mr. Flint in your father’s room which is never used?” asked Aunt Em, and saw the girl stiffen.
“No,” she said abruptly, and sat down on one of the deep window seats covered in nursery chintz.
Her aunt sighed. Sometimes she thought that Sarah missed her father more than any of them realized. Kathy had been his favorite, but he and his younger daughter were very alike, and he had surprised them all by leaving Dun Rury to her.
“It’s just as you like,” she said gently.
Sarah looked up suddenly and her smile was one of great sweetness. She stretched out a hand and pulled her aunt down beside her.
“Dear Aunt Em,” she said. “I know you’ve always felt my mother was wasted, just as you think Kathy is wasted. But they were happy, you know. He was so proud of her—just as he came to be
proud of Kathy because she was so like her. I remember him lifting me up in this very room and laughing at Mother and telling her she’d given him a changeling, and when she looked hurt, he kissed her and said: ‘We cannot expect more than two perfect beauties in one family.’ ”
Aunt Em’s gentle heart knew a moment’s compunction. She looked at her niece humbly, remembering her own childhood enslaved by beauty. So many careless words, so many unthinking actions, forgetting that children understood and remembered.
“Sarah,” she said tentatively, “were you hurt by such remarks as a child? You’re not plain, dear, you know. You must never—”
But Sarah fingered her high cheekbones and laughed.
“Plain? I’ve never thought about it. I don’t need to—when Kathy’s around. No, dear Aunt Em, I wasn’t hurt, except sometimes by Father, but that wasn’t his fault I loved him too much.”
Aunt Em was silent, realizing an old truth for the first time. Kathy would never be hurt by life as Sarah might, for she would never love too much.
“They are the lucky ones,” she said aloud, and at Sarah’s questioning eyebrows added: “Kathy and your mother.”
But Sarah did not understand. She only said, gently reassuring her aunt:
“Kathy will be all right. Kathy will marry Joe.”
“Joe?”
“Don’t you think Joe’s good enough?”
“Oh, yes, dear, of course. He’s a gentleman and will have a little money eventually. It’s only—”
“He’s more than that,” said Sarah sternly. “He’s kind and faithful—and good. Joe would never hurt anyone.”
“No, dear,” said her aunt, and felt rebuked.
In the snug below them, Mrs. Sullivan’s youngest was thumping out The Merry Peasant. Sarah stood up and stretched.
“This is a nice room,” she said with satisfaction. “Mr. Flint will have to be a very crotchety old gentleman, indeed, if he doesn’t like it. We’ll get Joe over for the weekend to help Nolan shift the furniture around.”
They were still awaiting replies from their prospective guests. Joe had drafted and typed Sarah’s letters for her, but she had insisted on adding to his rather formal phrasing: “We live simply but you will be afforded every home comfort.”
“And what home comforts are you prepared to offer, may I ask?” enquired Joe dryly. “Meals at all hours and an erratic hot water system?”
“Pouff!” said Sarah grandly. “That’s not the same thing at all. The English expect discomfort in Ireland. Home comforts mean sharing our jokes, admiring Kathy and doing what they like.”
“I see.” His eyes twinkled. “Well, I hope they’ll share your views, especially the old gentleman who’ll most likely be calling for hot possets at all hours of the day and night.”
“He can cook his own,” said Sarah firmly, “on a spirit lamp in his room.”
The weekend was fine. Between cleaning and furniture moving, Joe and Sarah swam in the lough and they all went for a Sunday picnic to St. Patrick’s Well.
“It’ll be too cold for swimming or picnicking soon,” Joe remarked as they idled home along the south road with the placid donkey carrying the empty picnic baskets, a greyhound running at his heels. “Nearly mid-September. It’s been a wonderful Summer for the west.”
“Oh, we’ll get in a few more picnics for Daisy before the weather breaks,” Sarah said. She had had Miss Dearlove’s reply yesterday, an enthusiastic, underlined effusion concluding with the information that she would arrive at the end of the, following week if that would be convenient to dear Miss Riordan.
Joe observed Sarah’s slim back and grinned affectionately. In her shrunken cotton slacks and a pair of Danny’s old sneakers she scarcely looked anyone’s conception of a landlady.
“You should turn Aunt Em on to the lodgers when they arrive,” he said to Kathy. “She looks much more the part.” Kathy smiled.
“Aunt Em says she would be much too frightened of them to deal with any of their demands or complaints. She’s had too many years of being bullied by landladies herself.” She slipped a confiding hand into his. “Joe—I hope this is going to work—for Sarah’s sake.”
He glanced down at her, but the eyes she raised to his were clear and untroubled. She was not really very concerned, and of late her old distaste for the idea had given way to a faint, childish excitement at the impending change in their lives.
“Well, a lot will depend on the guests themselves, won’t it?” he said.
“I suppose so. They don’t sound very—very interesting.”
His fingers tightened round hers.
“What were you hoping for? A handsome young man with ducal estates, or a poet, pale and passionate? Mr. Flint might yet turn out to be that.”
“You’re teasing. He doesn’t sound at all like that.”
“No, I don’t think so, either. He sounds a crank and so much the better.”
“What do you mean?”
Their steps had become slower and slower, and they were now a long way behind Sarah, Danny and the donkey.
“Well, you don’t think I want to risk too much competition, do you?” He spoke lightly, but his fingers closed firmly round hers.
She sighed.
“There’s not much chance of that, is there?” she said a little forlornly.
He experienced his old desire to decide matters for her, to sweep her off her feet by some happy stroke of inspiration, but he knew he could not do it. He had told Sarah that he was content to wait, and in a measure it was true, but it was a state of mind bred of too long an acquaintance with them all, and what he wryly recognized as the native tendency to drift.
“This is a very long and dusty road,” he said. “I can’t think why they didn’t macadamize it as they did the north side.”
“It wasn’t worth it, I suppose. The south road only serves Dun Rury and a few isolated cottages. Sarah says it’s a good thing, otherwise we should get tourist traffic.”
He smiled.
“The south road for the Riordans. Well, your brash Sarah is the only one who enjoys driving a car over those bumps and hairpin bends. Come and rest for a bit while I smoke a cigarette.”
They scrambled down the steep, heather-studded slope to the edge of the lough, and sat leaning against a boulder while the water lapped gently at their feet.
“I should have asked you that night when you disliked the idea of Sarah’s scheme so much,” he said, cupping his hands round his lighter.
“Asked me what?” She sounded abstracted, and her eyes were following the passage of a swallow dipping over the lough.
“To marry me.”
“What?” She laughed but still watched the water. “Oh, Joe, you’re always asking me.”
“I haven’t asked you for quite six months,” he said mildly.
She relaxed against him and her head rested on his shoulder with the familiarity, of long acquaintance.
“Poor Joe,” she said.
His arm tightened round her.
“Do you love me at all, Kathy?” he asked a little sadly.
She turned her face up to him.
“Oh, yes, of course. It’s just—”
“It’s just that you can’t grow up, is that it?”
“I don’t know. But there’s no hurry, is there, Joe?”
“No,” he said, and his arm slackened around her.
For the first time she read something in his quiet face which she had not noticed there before.
“Ask me again at Christmas,” she said a little breathlessly. “At Christmas I promise to give you my answer.”
He got to his feet, pulling her up beside him.
“Why Christmas?” he asked. “Because it’s three months away and Mr. Flint may turn out to be a pale young poet after all?”
“Of course not. But Christmas is a time for surprises and promises and—and for New Year resolutions.”
He smiled.
“All right, I’ll hold you to that. Come along n
ow, it’s getting cold and we’ll be late for tea.”
Early next morning Sarah rowed Joe across the lough to catch the bus for Knockferry. Kathy had put a sleepy head out of her window to call out goodbye. The rain was falling in a fine mist which blotted out the north shore until they were half-way across the water, and Sarah shook her wet hair from her eyes and pulled on the oars with enjoyment. “A soft day,” she said. “Nice after so much sun.”
He smiled at her. Whatever the weather, Sarah always thought it was nice.
“Come over next weekend and view the first lodger,” she said, and he grinned and said he would try.
She climbed the slope with him to knock up Casey and collect any mail which might have missed the Saturday round, and thought, as she always did, how different in character the north side of the lough was to the south. With its macadam road, telegraph posts and tidy fields it had a different aspect altogether from the opposite shore with its moors and mountains and rough winding road.
“Much nicer,” she said.
“What?”
“Our side.”
He ruffled her wet head.
“Whichever side Dun Rury happened to stand would be the nicer, wouldn’t it?” he teased, but he knew just what she meant.
Casey threw a packet of letters down to them from an upstair window, remarking that he heard there was opposition being set up on the south side to the Miss Kellys on the north.
“But you’ll not get their custom with that divil of a road that leps the heart out of your breast and anyone not knowing it,” he said, and shut his window with a bang.
They laughed and wandered over to the bus stop. Sarah pulled a letter out of the packet, saying: “Here’s the old gentleman’s reply. The terms are agreeable, etc... he has affairs to settle in England before he leaves—oh, Joe, you don’t suppose he’s come here to die, do you? He hopes to cross over towards the end of the month, but will wire us when to expect him ... Oh, listen, Joe! He finished: ‘Please do not expect me to respond to your offer of home comforts, which I do not require. All I am seeking is solitude and the reasonable amenities of life! Well!”
Joe’s eyes twinkled.
