Woman of the House
Page 25
When she brought back the hot water he ceremoniously mixed his concoction and handed around the glasses with a flourish. Then he announced: “Let’s drink a toast,” and they all rose to their feet.
“To the Phelans of the past, the Phelans of the present and the Phelans of the future,” Jack announced as they raised their glasses. The adults sipped their brew carefully, because Jack in this frame of mind could have a heavy hand, but the three younger ones slugged back the lemonade with relish.
“Can I do a toast?” Nora wanted to know.
“You don’t do a toast,” Peter told her, “you propose it.”
“Well, whatever you call it, can I do it?” she wanted to know.
“Jack seems to have appointed himself master of ceremonies,” her mother told her.
“Sure, Nora,” Jack told her with enthusiasm, “we’ll drink to whatever you want to propose.”
“To Dada,” she said, raising her glass of lemonade, “’cause I prayed to him not to let Mossgrove be sold and he heard.”
“He sure did,” Jack declared, raising his steaming glass, “and I’ll certainly drink to that and to our other absent friends.”
“Who are our other absent friends?” Nora wanted to know.
“Your grandmother Nellie Phelan and your great-grandfather old Edward Phelan,” Jack told her warmly, “the great people in whose footsteps we are walking today.”
“Do you know something, Jack,” Peter laughed at him, “I’d say that the cure is gone to your head.”
“Not a bit of it, boy,” Jack assured him grandly. “I’m drunk with relief of the occasion that’s in it. This is a great day for Mossgrove, and in years to come when I’m growing daisies down in Kilmeen cemetery, Peter, you remember this day and the joy that is in it. Because a lifetime of living only throws up a few days like this, and when they come they must be savoured and appreciated and recorded on the back pages of the mind, never to be forgotten. This is what living is all about, lad, celebrating the good days, and the memory of them will keep you going when things get rough. Because if you have good days once there is no reason why they will not come again. The secret is that when they are good you should say that they are good.”
“By God, Jack, that was some speech,” Mark told him appreciatively. “I didn’t think that you had that many words in you.”
“This is what you might call rising to the occasion,” Jack assured him, rubbing his hands together with relish.
“Would it be possible to have our tea now?” Martha asked coolly.
“Certainly, Martha,” Jack told her with a flourish; “pour away, my girl, and we’ll sample some of your splendid baking.”
Martha did not enjoy being termed “my girl”, but her annoyance was lost on Jack who handed around cups of tea as if they were golden goblets.
“Jack, I never saw you in such good humour,” Nora smiled at him.
“Good humour is a great thing,” Jack told her with enthusiasm, “and why wouldn’t we be in good humour and we wining and dining like lords and enjoying your mother’s fine fare.”
“Your cakes are scrumptious, Mom,” Nora said.
“They are superb,” Jack pronounced with vigour, handing plates up and down the table.
As Kate looked at the faces around the table she decided that Jack was right. After all the trauma they had been through it was good to celebrate this occasion. Peter, she had noticed, had not gone to his mother as Nora had done; it would take time for Peter to forgive Martha for what had happened. But she knew that Jack and Davy would get around him. There was no bitterness in either of them and they would encourage Peter to forget. If Martha had uprooted him out of Mossgrove, she would have had her hands full because he would never have forgiven her. Nora was different. Once the bad days were over Nora would let them go, and now looking at her smiling face Kate was thankful that she had handled Ned’s death so well. She loved this little girl who had so much of Nellie and Ned in her, and she was glad that she would grow up here where they would have wanted. It would be good for her, too, to have Agnes and Mark near by, because they had the gentleness and kindness that Martha lacked.
Martha, on the other hand, had the determination to run Mossgrove and make a good job of it, because Martha was never prepared to be second best. Now that she had no other choice she would be hell-bent on proving that she was smarter and better than any Phelan. That could only be good for Mossgrove. There was no doubt but that now that she was not selling she would sort out the Conways pretty fast. Ned had held her back from being too drastic with them, but now there was no restraint. Matt Conway would meet his match. Kate smiled to realise that Martha was probably as tough as the old man Phelan, and maybe in the circumstances that was no bad thing. She would need to be tough to handle the Conways. It was ironic that they were celebrating the cancellation of the sale with old Molly’s cure. She felt that it would have amused Molly Conway, who had had scant regard for her menfolk.
“Kate, you are away in a world of your own,” Mark smiled down at her.
“Yes, I’m savouring the day, as Jack told us to.”
“That was some speech coming from Jack, wasn’t it? Never thought that he had it in him.”
“I’m so happy for him that Martha changed her mind,” Kate said.
“It’s great for all of you,” Mark smiled, “and I’m delighted for my mother as well. She would have missed them so much. The only problem she has now is me.”
“You’re no problem.”
“Well, it would be nice if I earned a bit of money – not for my own sake, because I don’t give a damn, but it would be nice for Agnes if I was turning over an honest pound. It would make her feel good in the face of Martha’s criticism of me,” he said ruefully.
“It’s about to happen,” Kate told him.
“Oh yea, and pigs will fly,” he laughed.
“No, seriously,” she told him. “I have an announcement to make.”
Kate stood up and clinked her spoon against her cup. “I want to say something,” she announced.
“This is great,” said Nora. “I love when people make speeches. Will you be as good as Jack, Aunty Kate?”
“Couldn’t be as good as Jack,” Kate ruffled her hair; “he was on a runner.”
“Norry, will you ever shut up and let Aunty Kate make her announcement,” Peter said.
She could see Martha watching her. Bet she’s worried now, Kate thought.
“This has to do with Mark,” she began and saw a look of relief pass over Martha’s face. “We all know that Mark has been turning out wonderful pictures for years. The problem was that there was nobody to appreciate them properly. Well, all that is about to change.”
“Kate, what are you talking about?” Mark demanded.
“All will be revealed in due course. You all know that there is a new school coming to Kilmeen and that it will be in the Miss Jacksons’ old house. Well, their grandnephew in America is taking a great interest in it. He feels that there is no encouragement for the arts in Kilmeen, and how right he is. He wants works of art to hang on the walls to give the children an appreciation of such things. And guess who is going to do the pictures?” She paused for effect, looking around at the expectant faces. “Our Mark!”
“Where did all this come from?” Mark asked, a look of astonishment on his face.
“From old Mr Hobbs, and you are to take over some of your paintings for his approval during the week, but that is only a matter of form because they are the best there is.”
“But this is fantastic,” Mark breathed. “An opportunity to hang my pictures.”
“Yes, and when Rodney Jackson sees your pictures, Mark, it’s going to open doors for you.”
“I remember him coming once when I was a young fellow to visit his aunts,” Mark said.
“Old Hobbs said that he came, but I can’t remember him at all,” Kate said.
“Ah, you were too young,” Mark laughed; “I’ve a few years on you.”
“Good man, Mark,” Jack proclaimed; “it was only a matter of time before you were valued. Not that I know anything about paintings myself, now, but Kate was always telling me that you were a genius and that we were all too stupid to appreciate you.”
“Ah, Jack,” she protested, “I didn’t put it quite like that.”
“No,” he agreed, “but that was the truth anyway, even if you were too polite to say so.”
“So your pictures will be hanging in the new school, Mark,” Davy said in an impressed voice; “that will be something!”
“I’ll tell everybody that you are my uncle,” Nora declared. “I can’t wait to go to the new school.”
“They’ll all be all right kind of pictures?” Peter asked in a worried voice.
“Oh no,” Nora told him in a mocking tone, “they’ll be terrible! Don’t be stupid, Peter, Uncle Mark only paints beautiful pictures, and if the Conways say anything against them you are to fight them with Jeremy Nolan.”
“What’s all this about?” Mark protested. “Talk of fights, and nobody has said a word against them yet.”
“Well, the Conways are bound to be against them, because they are against everything,” she said, adding loyally, “except Kitty.”
“When were you over with Mr Hobbs?” Martha asked casually.
“Yesterday,” Kate told her briefly. “Isn’t it great news about Mark?”
“We’ll have to see how it all turns out before we start getting carried away,” she said.
“Oh, the sky is the limit now,” Kate assured her airily. “With talent like Mark’s all he needed was the opening, and this is it.”
“We’ll wait and see,” said Martha coolly.
“Well, this will never keep white stockings on the missus, as the old man used to say,” Jack announced. “So Davy, you and I had better get going and milk the cows.”
“Davy and I will do them, Jack,” Peter told him, rising from the table. “You’re too dressed up to go milking, and as well as that you can’t see too straight after that stuff you’re after drinking.”
“I could walk a straight line with the best of them,” Jack protested, “but if you’re generous enough to offer, I’ll be generous enough to accept and go home early and give Toby a surprise.”
“I’ll walk up the boreen with you,” Mark told him, and the four of them trooped out of the room
“Isn’t it nice when the men are gone?” Nora observed as they closed the door behind them. “Now it’s only us.” And she looked around from Martha to Agnes and Kate.
“The women are left to do the washing as usual,” Agnes smiled, “but who cares, because after all the good news we’ve had today I could wash up for a week.”
“Things are coming together at last,” Kate agreed.
“I’m so pleased for Mark,” Agnes said with fervour.
“So am I,” Martha said.
“Why didn’t you say so when he was here?” Agnes asked her.
“That’s not my way.”
Later, as Kate walked up the boreen she thought over the day that was gone. Martha did not know if she knew about the will or not, and it was probably the best way to leave things. All her mother had wanted was for Mossgrove to be safe. Peter must never know that Martha could not sell Mossgrove. But it was amazing that Nellie had not told Jack about the will.
When she reached his cottage Jack was waiting for her at the gate.
“Come in, Kate,” he invited, “and we’ll have a chat. I’ll find it hard to sleep tonight after all this excitement, but if we talk it over I might calm down a bit.”
“It’s great news, isn’t it,” she said when they were seated with Toby and Maggie by the fire.
“You knew, Kate, didn’t you, before she said anything?” Jack asked quietly.
“What makes you say that?”
“I was watching your face,” he told her, “and you were not in the least bit surprised when Martha told us.”
“You’re a wily old devil, Jack,” she smiled.
“The mind is a strange thing,” Jack mused, “but when Martha told me yesterday evening about the special tea it set me thinking. I knew that it could only mean that she had changed her mind, and there had to be a very good reason. Then I remembered something that Nellie had said years ago about taking steps to protect Mossgrove.”
“You forgot all about it in the mean time?” Kate asked.
“I didn’t understand what she meant; I asked her, but she wouldn’t explain. It was one thing she kept private from me, and I put it out of my mind.”
“Until yesterday.”
“Until yesterday.”
“It was all a long time ago,” said Kate.
“Yea! But it was so important, and that was why she told me. She had something in the will, hadn’t she?”
“That’s right. She made it so that Mossgrove could not be sold without my permission. But we’ll never tell anyone, Jack, why Martha changed her mind.”
“I once told you that you were like the old man,” he said reflectively, “but that’s not one hundred percent correct. He would have ground Martha under his heel with the power that Nellie’s will gave you.”
“Nellie would never have wanted me to humiliate Martha.”
“Yes, that was her way. When she was the woman of the house here she did things well. But maybe our new woman will come into her own now.”
“You could be right, Jack,” Kate agreed.
Copyright
This eBook edition first published 2014 by Brandon,
an imprint of The O’Brien Press Ltd
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Dublin 6, Ireland.
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First published 1997 by Mount Eagle.
eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–638–7
Copyright © Alice Taylor 1997
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Cover illustration: John Short
The Books of Alice Taylor
Memoirs
To School Through the Fields
Quench the Lamp
The Village
Country Days
The Night Before Christmas
Poetry
The Way We Are
Close to the Earth
Going to the Well
Fiction
The Woman of the House
Across the River
House of Memories
Essays
A Country Miscellany
Diary
An Irish Country Diary
Children’s
The Secrets of the Oak