The Big Wind

by Beatrice Coogan

  ‘Blame yourself! Briseann an ducas tre suleann an cat,’ he said and soared over the cordon. He couldn’t wait for her to wind up the demned worsted. He had to ride those dangerous currents out of his veins.

  Behind her there was a clattering as Black Pat rode into the yard. He called her name but she took no notice. Why had Sir Roderick quoted that Gaelic saying. ‘Nature breaks out through the eyes of a cat’?

  ‘I didn’t expect that from you, Nonie.’ The gravel-voiced constriction in Pat’s voice made her turn at last. She scrutinised the lean dark features. He was wearing his good broadcloth for the evening’s festivities. He did justice, she thought, to well-cut clothes; lithe and well knit; sat his fine horse with the same easy grace as his aristocratic foster-brother. The grace but not the graces! She turned and looked after the receding horseman. There rode all the grace of life that had been envisaged in the romantic heart of the girl who had eloped with Black Pat.

  ‘And I didn’t expect it from Rody O’Carroll either.’

  ‘Didn’t you, Pat?’ she answered him at last, in a funny, quiet little voice. ‘But people are never quite what they are expected to be. Neither is life.’ He felt that her eyes, so unusually bright, were looking through and beyond him. If she saw him at all, it was to take his measure with the man whose kiss had made her eyes look as they did.

  Suddenly they became aware of him. ‘Don’t be so serious, Pat duv,’ she cried and her voice had resumed its normal brightness. ‘It was the girls inside who tied the wool across the road. I’ve never seen the custom before—of course, we lived quite a good stretch in from the road.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said and the gravel still dried his voice, ‘there was an avenue between you and the road.’

  Sterrin rode towards her papa and asked him what was the green thing across the road. He suppressed the inclination to tell her that little girls should be seen and not heard.

  ‘I suppose,’ she reflected when he had explained the old custom, ‘that those kind of people would prefer the shilling to a kiss.’ Those kind of people! Little Oenone, elegant, poised, accomplished; overflowing with that elusive, indefinable quality of feminine allure. How many shillings in the dowry she had spurned for love’s kiss?

  ‘Which would you prefer? The kiss or the shilling?’

  ‘The shilling, of course,’ she said hopefully.

  For the second time the same shilling was pondered in his finger, then dropped. No bribery, he decided.

  They turned into the Sir’s Road. Over the gap in the wall they could see the garçonnerie led by Young Thomas picking baskets of shamrocks.

  ‘You won’t need that much,’ she called.

  ‘Won’t we?’ said Thomas who hadn’t glimpsed the Sir. ‘All the Delaney young ladies have arrived and a carriageful of De Laceys and—’ Sterrin gave a cry of delight as she spied Bunzy riding towards her on her Connemara pony.

  ‘Mamma allowed me to ride with Hubert behind the carriage and she says that I can stay the night if I am asked.’

  Roderick popped his head over the wall. ‘Well,’ he gasped in mock amazement. ‘If it isn’t little Miss Bunzy! Let us hope that you are going to do us the honour of staying over for the feast-day.’ Bunzy gasped out an excited assurance then galloped off to inform her mamma that she had been invited to stay.

  Margaret was entertaining Saint Patrick’s Day celebrants in the drawing-room. Roderick made his way to the library by the back and took down the book of records. The excited tingling in his finger made him riffle the pages. Here it was! The entry about Black Pat’s lease. ‘...and I trust that its heritage will compensate his little wife, Nonie... for the heritage that she has abandoned in the cause of love’.

  What kind of pompous sentiment was that for his father to record? The heritage of a little wayside farmhouse and a half-dozen brats fathered by a rustic. And what kind of a lady had she been? Where was her fastidiousness? Galloping off after the fellow. He caught sight of himself in a mirror. And she galloped in the opposite direction from you! You had to do the galloping after her! What the devil am I talking about? He closed the book with a snap and got to his feet. Then sat down again and opened it and filled in her surname in the space left by his father; Mansfield. It looked strange there, the solitary word in its green ink that was a conceit of Davis’s for Repeal Year; and the ‘Nonie’ didn’t suit it. Probably a crudity of Black Pat’s. But it suited Her, pert, provocative! Very painstakingly he squeezed in over the surname the name that he had taken care to ascertain after the hunting incident—Oenone. Miss Oenone Mansfield! And now she was Nonie Black Pat Ryan. The distinctive name looked as strange, pushed in there between the rather faded lines of his father’s writing as its owner had looked down in the little farmhouse in her green gown, staring out at him from those marvellous eyes. He closed the book with a snap. What the devil had the love ramifications of his tenants got to do with him? He was making too much about a seasonable kiss; footing or mistletoe or whatever it was! Whatever it was it still made a tingling on his lips as he went to meet his guests.

  At the drawing-room door he stopped amazed. This was something different from the usual Saint Patrick’s Eve celebrations. A batch of Delaney girls came round him, all sporting the usual streams of green ribbon from shoulders to hem. But it was the gentlemen who had given him the sudden impression of splendour.

  Patrick Cullen in the elegant uniform suggested by Davis to attract the young nobility to Repeal’s ‘corps d’élite’ was leading forward Lord Templetown’s son and heir resplendent in the new uniform.

  ‘They make me feel positively dowdy,’ said Fiona De Lacey. Her father assured her that she would feel dowdier still by the time that he had paid the tailor for Hubert’s uniform.

  ‘Forty-five guineas for the jacket alone. Me! who has not had a new suit since I was married!’

  Roderick linked his arm and drew him towards the Mether Cup for the ceremonial drowning of the shamrock.

  ‘Don’t worry, Phineas,’ he said. ‘You’ll get it all back on the first wave of Repeal.’

  * Brother to the Great.

  † An indoor headgear worn by ladies of fashion.

  21

  The grain harvest that autumn had been a plenteous one. Soon it would be potato digging time, the ‘poor man’s harvest’. Roderick rode down to see Black Pat. He slowed to look across a hedge at Black Pat’s mare. It was in foal by the thoroughbred he had sold them. A fine mare. They had a profitmaking strain there.

  When he rode out on to their roadway he heard violin music from the house. It had a happy sound. The life she had chosen must hold for her some meaning. Was there meaning he wondered in that tune she had chosen? ‘Love’s Young Dream’ again. Because he was tempted to linger he touched his spurs to his mount and pressed on. ‘No,’ he hummed, ‘that hallowed form is ne’er forgot. Which first love traced...’ He broke off. If that hallowed form down there in the field was Black Pat’s, it was behaving deucedly extraordinary!

  Black Pat was running from one drill to the next digging a few stalks and tossing them aside. Then he jumped across more drills and started to dig like a maniac. Roderick set his mount to the hedge and cantered up the headland. Black Pat, completely oblivious of his landlord’s presence, flung stalk after stalk from his spade, then with a sobbing gasp he flung the spade from him in a wide sweep.

  It landed at the horse’s feet. The animal reared up on its hind legs and almost unseated Roderick. Black Pat turned to the spectacle of the great horse plunging high and menacing above him. ‘The Black Horseman!‘ he screamed. ‘Vo, Vo! The Black Horseman that rides across the land scattering Pestilence and Death and Starvation!’

  Down in the opening, as he knelt over the drills Roderick saw heaps of black, slimy mess. They were the fruits of the healthy, firm potatoes he had seen go down in this field on Saint Patrick’s Eve... He averted his head from the stench.

  Black Pat was feeling ashamed of his outburst. He held the bridle while Sir Roderick moun
ted and at last he found voice to say in Gaelic. ‘The dogs have not eaten up the end of the year.’ Roderick assured him that he would not see him short. A good thing that the castle crop was so good! O’Driscoll had turned up a few stalks this morning for a preview of the crop. They had been laden with the finest potatoes. It looked as if there might be need of them all; if there were other cases like Black Pat’s.

  He reached the Cobs where his own potato fields lay. ‘Good God!’ He flung himself from the horse. ‘Those leaves have the same spots as Ryan’s.’

  The leaves that had bloomed green and healthy in the morning looked now as if acid had been poured on them. He pulled up a stalk. It shrivelled in his hand. Even while he held it the potatoes blackened and melted!

  He sprang on to a bank and called some workmen to bring spades. They dug as madly as had Black Pat. The results were the same. What had been firm tubers this morning were now a putrid mess. Was this another trick of nature? Like the one that had deprived him of his field. ‘By God! She won’t trick me again!’ he said aloud.

  The men looked at each other. But that was their last idle moment. All night the torches blazed in the potato fields. Indoor and outdoor staff worked like fiends. In the lurid glare their faces reminded Young Thomas glancing up from his spade, of the fiends in the illustrations of the ‘Inferno’ in the library, driving their tripods into hell’s flames. But these were desperate men fighting with unrelenting spades the evil force that threatened from the earth. The scene reminded Margaret of the time in her childhood when she had been visiting in Holland and had seen men fighting back the sea from the gorged dykes.

  By morning one quarter of the crop was saved. The rest was corruption. It was disaster for the tenants.

  At Christmas, after Roderick had added potatoes to the tenants’ usual gift of meat, there was none left for his own family. Perhaps, after Saint Stephen’s Day, he would ride over to Queen’s County and purchase a few tons of Mr. Delaney’s famous ‘Queen’s County Champions’.

  Hounds met on Kilsheelin’s lawn on Saint Stephen’s morning. The mist-enshrouded symphony of creaking and jinglings and yaps livened to the gay exchange of greetings. Carriages kept streaming up the avenue. The dereliction of the potato field gave way to the gaiety of the hunting field. Roderick, in the act of pouring a stirrup cup for Lord Templetown stopped suddenly. ‘Egad!’ exclaimed his Lordship. ‘What a pair! What a matched pair! Whose turnout is it, Sir Roderick?’ An imposing looking equipage was whirring up the avenue followed by a pair of grooms with a blanketed horse apiece.

  Roderick peered with flagon suspended. A small figure in mulberry stepped down and opened the door with a flourish. The outline of the lady who emerged was sculpted in the perfection of her riding habit.

  ‘God save you, Rody!’ she called. ‘I see that I am in time for the stirrup juice.’

  Roderick extended the flagon and doffed his hunting cap. ‘By the piper that played before Moses, if it isn’t Mrs. Delaney.’

  ‘I don’t blame your surprise, Rody,’ she said. ‘It is not often that we take the moths from the carriage. I thought we would pay you proper respect for a change. And—I have a small favour to ask.’

  Roderick sketched an elaborate bow. ‘You have but to name it.’

  She waved away the mounting block and sprang into the saddle. ‘Oh,’ she said offhandedly. ‘I only want you to sell me a few tons of spuds.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Be careful there, Rody. You’re spilling the wine. Yes, that’s all.’

  After the hunt Mrs. Delaney canvassed every gentleman of her acquaintance for potatoes. But they all had the same story. Their potatoes had failed. Lord Cullen had fared worst. He had saved his entire crop sound. But when the pits had been opened at Christmas to distribute potatoes amongst the tenants, there wasn’t a sound one there. They had rotted in the pits. ‘And they were perfect going in. My steward graded them meticulously.’

  They trotted round to the front of the castle. Mrs. Appleyard was being helped from her mount by a military groom. ‘Oh la!’ she cried. ‘What solemn faces! Whatever can you gentlemen be discussing?’

  ‘Just potatoes, dear lady,’ said Lord Templetown getting stiffly from his saddle.

  ‘Potatoes!’ shrilled Mrs. Kennedy-Sherwin. ‘What a dull topic.’

  ‘Conversation, dear lady, is always dull when gentlemen are left together. It will brighten now under the radiance of your presence.’ His tone was like a chuck under the chin.

  She purred. It only needed well-trimmed compliments to bring her into full sparkle after the excitement of the hunt. ‘Flatterer!’ she cooed. ‘And anyway there are lots more interesting vegetables. Myself, I prefer artichokes.’

  ‘Ah, but what an adorably selective palate,’ piped in Lord Cullen.

  The delighted little flirt noticed that even the unassailable Sir Roderick was smiling at her. Quite a conquest.

  His smile was for his thoughts. What would Black Pat say if he were to suggest artichokes to him? Or, better still. Asparagus! And then he recalled that Black Pat had a wife who had not always been beyond the possibility of—asparagus, who still retained an allure more subtle that this little siren’s. Better not draw that covert! ‘Papa!’ Sterrin galloped up all excitement. ‘The Wren Boys are coming!’

  Up the avenue, to the music of fiddles and bagpipes came the traditional Saint Stephen’s Day procession of youths and girls. The grotesque Omadhawn, a sack over his body with holes for his arms, his face masked like the jester of medieval processions, kept order by capering about and belabouring everyone with a cow’s bladder tied to a stick. ‘The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,’ they chanted. ‘On Saint Stephen’s Day was caught in the furse. Although he is little; his family is great. Rise up Lords and Ladies and give us a treat!’

  Roderick lightened as he led them inward for the usual reception. The blight of the potatoes had not blighted their spirits. He could still remember how proud he had felt as a small boy trotting up the avenue in the wake of the Wren Boys with Black Pat; he felt just as awed as the others at the castle’s grandeur. Consciousness of the knowledge that he was its heir had not dawned; only consciousness of the fact that he alone of the small boys who ran in the wake of the procession was privileged by the leader to be let carry the holly branch that held the wren.

  It was held now by John Holohan who had carried the Templetown banner so high at Tara’s meeting. The ladies’ eyes ranged interestedly over his six feet five inches. A scarlet sash was draped bandolier fashion across his shoulders. When he removed his ribbon-decked hat, his hair sprang out in thick rings about his forehead.

  ‘All he needs,’ murmured Mrs. Kennedy-Sherwin, ‘is a toga.’

  ‘Must you be so classically blue-stocking?’ drawled her friend.

  Dominic Landy, the Omadhawn, signalled the musicians and marshalled his followers into dance formation. John Holohan laid aside his holly bush and bowed before Lady O’Carroll for the honour of leading her out.

  ‘How delightfully arcadian!’ said Mrs. Appleyard to Lieutenant Fitzharding-Smith.

  ‘And,’ said Mrs. Kennedy-Sherwin, ‘she needs neither hounds nor huntsmen to draw her coverts.’

  The lieutenant looked longingly towards the lady of his hopeless devotion. ‘Lady O’Carroll is more shepherdess than huntress,’ he sighed.

  ‘And you,’ said Mrs. Kennedy-Sherwin, ‘are more sheep than huntsman.’

  He sprang to his feet. ‘Lady fair, were a gentleman to make that statement I should call him out. I demand that you give me satisfaction by allowing me to lead you out.’

  Roderick gave his hand to a golden-haired girl in a scarlet cloak. When she laid aside her cloak and moved into the centre of the hall there was something like a gasp. Her hair cascaded in golden waves down to the first frill of her gown. Lieutenant Fitzharding-Smith hummed the aria from Handel. ‘And the glory of golden hair.’ Margaret was minded of the kneeling Magdalen.

  When the food was served
, Roderick noticed that things were different with the gay dancers and mummers. The flush of the dance receding from John Holohan’s face left it white and thin. The same with all the others. Their faces all too pallidly etched. They were showing the shortage of potatoes. Some of these six-footers would eat two dozen twice a day.

  *

  To Sterrin’s surprise the ponyman from the Connemara mountain appeared again a month later. He had no ponies; just two wild looking boys and three little girls who shivered together under the shawl for which their mother had no further need.

  They told Mrs. Stacey about the shawl as they sat huddled in the chimney nook gazing with awe at the row of fires. Eight fires! Blazing separately and sending separate spirals of smoke up the vast chimney; as vast as six of their native cabins put together.

  The praties had gone black in the ground, Attracta the oldest, had told her; just as they had on everyone else in the parish. Then the landlord, Lord Campbell who had been absent in England so long that none of the children had ever seen him, decided to come back. Lady Campbell was bringing thirty guests and the mountain was wanted for a shoot. So the tenants’ houses had to be knocked down. Mameen had been sick and when the police and bailiff came on Christmas Eve to put them out, Attracta had pleaded with them to let mameen stay the night and the rest would go. There was a wild storm blowing in from the Atlantic; terrible sleet and rain. One could hear the souls in purgatory crying in the wind.* But mameen had to get out.

  Daddy carried her down the track to the foot of the hill and she was still in sight of the house when she died. The smallest child interrupted to say that her mameen didn’t want to die. She had cried! Mary Josephine, the middle girl, turned on her and said that it was a terrible thing to say about mameen. She didn’t mind dying only for leaving them behind without food. At this stage of the recital, Mrs. Stacey and all the female staff were crying.