In the Middle of the Fields

by Mary Lavin

  The only pity was that Joss and George themselves could not more often eat there, or indeed live permanently there because in spite of their money they were men of simple ways who went about the countryside buying and selling their own stock like plain farmers. Needless to say they were infinitely larger minded than ordinary farmers and certainly did not make a display of their wealth, but one had only to look at their sister to see the stock from which they had been bred. Just to consider the paper-thin soles of Miss Garret’s shoes was to know that never in her life had she stepped into a pad of cow dung.

  Not that Miss Lomas herself was one for traipsing through fields. She got a good grasp of all that she was required to know about farming from the account books and the farm correspondence which she in the main handled. And of course she learned a lot by listening to the talk at table whenever she put up a lunch for a vet or a land inspector, or on the even happier days when the brothers themselves arranged to eat with her if they were shearing sheep or dosing cattle, it being obviously more sensible for them to remain at Brook Farm for their mid-day meal rather than lose precious time going back and forth between it and the big place.

  There was nothing Miss Lomas liked better than getting up a decent meal for men capable of appreciating it. Hearty food for hearty eaters was her motto. After warning the men that the plates were mad hot, although never as in lesser establishments disfigured by oven marks, she would ladle out huge helpings of prime beef cooked to a nicety and plentifully doused with gravy from rich pan-liquor. She would eagerly grasp her own knife and fork and eat up with as much gusto and relish as any man.

  When the meal was over and the room still reeked traditionally of whiskey and tobacco, Miss Lomas made a point of taking leave of the company to go down to the kitchen and personally supervise the making of the coffee. Unfailingly Joss would spring up to pull out her chair, and invariably he would pay her a nicely phrased compliment. ‘Where would we be without you, Miss Lomas. You are the heart of Brook Farm.’

  ‘Ah, but where would I be without Brook Farm?’ she would invariably reply.

  Then as George chimed in with generous words of his own, echoed by the guest if any, Miss Lomas would let the beam of her smile sweep over the table, stopping short only at Christy.

  Who was Christy?

  Christy was the fly in the ointment at Brook Farm. He was a partial orphan, the son of an older sister of the Garrets who had died in childbirth soon after having married unsuitably, unhappily, and also unhealthily to judge by Christy’s looks.

  Poor Christy had a yellow face, weedy yellow hair and even the whites of his eyes were yellow. Miss Lomas could not stand the sight of him. It was a thorn in her flesh that he was sometimes taken to be a relative of hers. ‘Don’t class me with that fellow,’ she would say quite crisply for one of her soft nature. Nor did she hesitate to freely voice her opinion to Joss that it had been a mistake for the Garrets to take Christy to live with them at all. He would have been far better left with his father’s people whom he took after in more ways than one. Christy had profited nothing by being reared from birth at Garretstown, and when Brook Farm was bought and it was arranged that he would sleep there to keep her company, Miss Lomas would frankly have preferred a dog.

  There was no blood bond between Miss Lomas and any of the Garrets, none whatever. Some vague connection may have existed going back to a distant marriage, but it fell far short of a bond of blood. And from the shadow of charity that hung over Christy Miss Lomas was careful to stand well clear.

  The Garrets were obligated to her, not she to them. Furthermore, since at times several days might lapse without the brothers setting foot in Brook Farm at all, Miss Lomas, in their absence was regarded by the local people in the light of its Regent. Time was, when it was thought she might one day be its Queen, but if such a notion had ever entered her own head, she had promptly put it to rout. It would not have been proper for her to be residing there at all if there had been any element of that sort in her relationship with the brothers. As things were, they always made sure to be out of her house by nightfall, unless a jobber from Scotland or Northern Ireland had to be given a bed, on which occasions, such was their sense of decorum, the brothers would request her to make up a bed for one or other of themselves as well, to make sure the proprieties were safeguarded. Not that anyone would have found the smallest cause for scandal in her being alone in the house with any of the cattle dealers who came there. They were Nature’s gentlemen to the core. Most of them were married men, with whose wives Miss Lomas had been made acquainted by proxy, and to whom from time to time she despatched little gifts of handmade crochet, soda bread or country butter. It could almost have been said of the Garrets, herself and the cattlemen that they were one large happy family. It would have been hard to untangle the debts and counter-debts, that over the years had grafted them together. Miss Lomas was truly part and parcel of Brook Farm.

  ‘And when my day is done I will not be taken far away from here,’ she frequently said, looking out of the window towards where, beyond a thin belt of fir trees that separated it from Brook Farm, an old over-grown cemetery could be glimpsed.

  Once or twice it had occurred to Miss Lomas that she ought to ask the brothers to buy a plot for her in that cemetery, knowing they would never refuse her anything. But sensitivity held her back. Being Protestants, the Garrets themselves could not be buried in that little cemetery. Unfortunately however Christy was fully entitled to this privilege, for, among the many other mistakes his mother had made, she had married a Catholic. To fortify herself against the unpleasant thought of being buried within the same acre as him, Miss Lomas nourished the hope that the miserable fellow might yet take himself off out of their lives before he had need of a grave, sickly and all he looked. In spite of his spinelessness he would hardly put up forever with the humiliations that were heaped on him by his uncles in their disappointment at how he had turned out. Failing his departure however Miss Lomas consoled herself by thinking that sickly or not, he would, most likely on account of his youth, outlive her, and her bones would have returned to dust by the time he’d join her. For surely she’d be the first of all of them to go, even before poor Miss Garret because as everyone knows invalids hang on like burrs to life. It was therefore a great shock to Miss Lomas, one fine day when Christy ran in from the yard where they were sculling cattle to say that Joss Garret had dropped down dead on the cobblestones. ‘He died without making a will too,’ Christy panted. But Miss Lomas was naturally only concerned with getting down to the yard.

  In the yard however arrangements were already underway for the body to be brought back to Garretstown. Somehow or other in her grief and confusion Miss Lomas had assumed that Joss would be carried in to Brook Farm. She couldn’t help thinking how much better she’d lay him out than would be done up at the other place, for all its grandeur. But she stifled this unworthy thought and hurried to ready herself for going over to Garretstown, where she knew she’d be needed. She had already given orders for the Garretstown trap to be sent to fetch her.

  Arriving at Garretstown, Miss Lomas found, as she expected, that she had no time to think of anything other than planning the enormous quantities of food and drink that the sad occasion would demand. It was not until late in the day that she got an opportunity of a private word with George. To her surprise, like Christy’ George’s first words too were about wills and testaments. Unlike Christy of course George only intended to reassure her about her position, a reassurance she herself had never for a moment deemed necessary.

  ‘You see, Miss Lomas,’ George explained, ‘up to the time we bought Brook Farm, our entire estate was held in a family trust and because my brother and I were always so close to each other, our personal monies were in a joint account. It is therefore only with regard to Brook Farm that there could be any difficulty because for some reason of convenience at the time of the sale, the precise nature of which I forget
, it was not important, Brook Farm was bought by Joss in his own name and we never got around to remedying the matter. It was very careless, but these things happen. Unfortunately, since Joss died intestate, the place will have to be sold.’ When, at this, Miss Lomas started violently, George held up his hand and begged to be allowed to continue. ‘I will, of course, be the buyer. I will buy into the family estate by private treaty. There is no cause for concern. Things will go on as before, except for the sorrow of our loss.’ He stood up. ‘There will be no change, Miss Lomas.’

  Joss was laid out in one of the upstairs rooms at Garretstown House and people thronged the stairs all the next day and late into the night on the eve of the funeral. Miss Lomas was up to her eyes catering for them. On the day of the funeral however she could not suppress a feeling of anxiety, which arose in her when she saw the large mob of Christy’s relatives on his father’s side, who felt free to call to Garretstown and who had the effrontery to push into the dining room and eat and drink their fill of what she had thought she was providing for a select company. Although she herself was rushing frantically backwards and forwards seeing that empty meat platters were replaced by full ones, and glasses kept topped up, it did not escape her notice that the undesirables stuck very close together, their heads in a bunch. They were hatching trouble. She felt sure of it. And she wondered how George kept his equanimity.

  As for Christy himself, he was a new man, all energy, all life. Once as she passed him he spared her a word. ‘They say George can’t buy back the farm, except by public auction,’ he said. A nerve in his left cheek was jumping as if for joy.

  Although her own head was throbbing, Miss Lomas gave him a piece of her mind. ‘What kind of a gom are you?’ She said. ‘You’re like a man in one end of a sinking ship laughing at those in the other end.’

  Yet, before she left for Brook Farm in the early hours of the morning, she sought out George. She found him graver than before but still calm and collected.

  ‘Be so kind as to step into my study for a moment, Miss Lomas,’ he said, escorting her to a chair and sitting down patiently beside her. ‘I have to tell you that since I last spoke to you, I have learned that nothing can save Brook Farm from going under the auctioneer’s hammer.’ Seeing her begin to tremble, he took her hand and pressed it. ‘Not because of local pressure, mind you, that is only ignorant gossip. It will have to be auctioned because of the covetous curs you saw here tonight, those relatives of Christy’s. Those curs did not come to pay their respects to my poor brother, they were here to see what gain might come to them from his sudden death. They weren’t slow to find out my intention of buying the place by private treaty, and knowing that Christy would be entitled to a cut of the purchase money, they put him up to demanding his cut in cash instead of adhering to my advice that, as one of the family, he be a party to a plan I had outlined to him. By this plan he would have to allow his share, like mine and that of my sister, be reabsorbed into the estate, a plan, which as you can imagine, would be vastly to his ultimate advantage. It would of course be a long-term policy, but for a half-wit like him that’s the only kind of policy I could advise. However if a fistful of money was what he wanted, I would have been prepared to give it to him. But do you think those curs were satisfied? Not them! If you please they did not trust me to put a fair price on the place. It’s them who are insisting on an auction. I wouldn’t put it past them to rig the bidding.’

  ‘But how will they gain by an auction?’ Miss Lomas couldn’t help interrupting.

  George gave a mirthless smile. ‘Because in an open market the whole thing would have to be a cash transaction, and it was the cash they had their eye on. They knew their Christy. Did you never hear that a fool and his fortune are soon parted? If Christy got his share in coin, they knew they could count on getting their hands on most of it. That’s the principle behind their conniving. I hear they are already trying to persuade the poor fellow to go back and live with them.’ At thought of the like happening, George threw his eyes up to heaven, although Miss Lomas, if left to herself, would have seen nothing wrong with any proposal that would take Christy out of her hair. Her hopes in this respect however were quickly quenched. ‘Ah, but I’m able for curs like that,’ George’s voice rose so high that Miss Lomas glanced anxiously at the door to make sure it was shut. ‘They won’t get away with that. Christy will not leave Brook Farm. As for his relatives, they’ll soon be scuttling back to their kennels. You see, I’ve just had a word with Parr.’

  ‘Mr Parr?’ At mention of the solicitor’s name, Miss Lomas let out a long pent-up breath. She knew Mr Parr well. Brook Farm would be safe in his hands. Many a meal the solicitor had eaten there. He was a fox if ever there was one but very civil, and fox or no fox, he never left the house without remarking on how well she kept things. On his last visit, indeed, he had been extraordinarily warm and natural for a man of his profession. He stayed talking to her in the front hall, not heeding that Joss and George, who had had his trap brought round, were waiting to see him out the gate. He persisted in telling her all about a sister of his whose husband had just died leaving no money and a large family. He even took out his wallet and showed her a photograph of the children. ‘They are fortunate children, Mr Parr,’ she’d said that day with genuine fervour. ‘They will be safe in your hands.’

  And so, too, would Brook Farm.

  That conversation was some time ago of course and Miss Lomas called her wandering thoughts to order because George was still trying to explain the present situation to her. ‘Tell me, Miss Lomas, did you ever hear of a mock auction? You didn’t? Well, that’s what’s going to be held at Brook Farm. Let me briefly explain Parr’s plan. The house and lands will be put up for public sale alright, and the sale announced on bill boards pasted to every telephone pole in the country, as well as publicised by notices in the columns of the national as well as the provincial newspapers. Then on the day of the sale, the place will be knocked down to the highest bidder.’

  Miss Lomas had been perplexed from the start, but now her perplexity would have reached alarming proportions if she had not detected a playful glint in George’s eye. ‘And do you know, Miss Lomas, who the highest bidder will be?’ he asked. ‘You don’t. Well I’ll tell you. It will be Christy, no less!’ Now George was laughing openly at her confusion, but his kindliness prevailed over his amusement. ‘No need to be alarmed. Parr has everything in hand. He has arranged that I will go guarantee for Christy so he can borrow the purchase money from the bank, but only on condition that immediately after the sale he signs a mortgage for as near as no matter to the same amount as the Loan. Do you follow? In this way, he won’t lay hands on a penny piece. He will be the nominal, but I will be the virtual owner of the place. Then, when his false friends slink away, after letting a little time pass, I will persuade him to sell back to me, this time by private treaty and at a fair price.’ In spite of his undoubted grief for the death of his brother, Miss Lomas saw George’s eyes light up with triumph at the manner in which he would beat his enemies. Not that Christy was an enemy. On the contrary, George proceeded there and then to explain that Christy would fare far and away better under Parr’s plan.

  ‘He will of course get paid a certain amount of cash, but Parr has thought up an arrangement by which he cannot squander it. To tell you the truth I have sometimes wondered if I tried hard enough to guide the poor young devil in the right path. I felt I would be wasting my time. But after we’ve handled this tricky situation, I’m going to make it my business, henceforth to try to steer him in the right direction. I’ll see to it that he cuts off all connection with the other side of his family at least until he sells the place back to me. If I can persuade him to keep the transaction quiet, and clear out of the country altogether, take himself off to Canada or Australia and make a new start, I might raise the price I’d give him. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to feel I might be making a man of him after all. If he does well wherever he goes
, it would be an interest for me to follow his progress. I might even think of making a voyage out to see him sometime. Those foreign places get a lot of the sun. And then, of course, in the natural order of things, when the last of us dies he will be entitled to the whole property. It’s not a bad proposition for a lout like him.’ But here, to the distress of Miss Lomas, George seemed to lose his pleasure in the plan. ‘Not that in my opinion, there will be a lot left when that day dawns. My sister, in spite of her weak constitution, may live as long as Methuselah. There’s no one like an invalid for dragging out life to the bitter end, and draining away family resources however abundant.’ He stood up to go.