Part 16

Mrs Daly arrived with something evidently on her mind. She was not likely, indeed, to have undertaken that slow and painful hobble through the pelting rain without some object; but she seemed to find much difficulty in disclosing it. At last, however, having repeated incredibly often that it was “a very soft night intirely,” she made the following more pertinent statement:—

“I’m after gettin’ a letter to-day from me brother Hugh’s son. That was Hugh went out to the States I couldn’t tell you what ould ages ago, and be all accounts he’s made the fine fortin in it. But the time he went I was about gettin’ married, and he set his face agin that altogether. No opinion he had of poor Andy, that wasn’t to say very well to do, and maybe not over-steady. So he wouldn’t allow me to be spakin’ to Andy at all, and he was wantin’ me to go out along wid himself, for Hugh and I were always frinds. Infuriated he was when he couldn’t persuade me; the last time I seen him, there was no name bad enough for him to be callin’ poor Andy, and he up and tould me that, as sure as he was alive, the next time he set eyes on me ’twould be beggin’ he’d find me, unless it was in the workhouse. And sez I to him he might make his mind aisy that, whativer place he might find me in, the on’y thing I’d be beggin’ of him’d be to keep himself out of it. And we’ve niver been friendly since. Sorra the letter I’ve wrote to him, nor he to me. But now there’s the young chap writin’ me word from Queenstown that he’s crossed the wather to see the ould counthry, and that before he wint his father bid him go look up his Aunt Nan while he was at home. Sure, I scarce thought he as much as knew where I was livin’ these times. So me nephew’s comin’ to-morra on the train to Newtownbailey.... Well, now, you know me house, sir? It isn’t too bad a little place at all, but you couldn’t say it was very big.”

You certainly could not say so, upon almost any scale of measurement, or with any approximation to truth, I reflected; for I had seen its tenant creeping in and out at its low black doorway, which would hardly have made an imposing entrance to an average rabbit-burrow.

“And I was thinkin’,” she continued, “that if the young fellow come there, it might be apt to give him the notion I was livin’ in a poorish sort of way—for the dear knows what quare big barracks of places he’s maybe used to at home—and I’m no ways wishful he’d bring back any such a story wid him to his father, after the talk he had out of him about the workhouse and the beggin’.

“And another thing is, Hugh’d say ’twas next door to it, me sellin’ them hap’orths of sweets outside there; he would, sure enough, for none of me family done the like ever. Och, I’d a dale liefer he’d ha’ sted away; but I can’t put him off of comin’. And I was thinkin’—I was thinkin’, sir....” But Mrs Daly’s further thoughts could not be put into words without much stumbling and hesitation. “What I was thinkin’ was, that if be any chance you were out paintin’ the way you do mostly be, sir, after dinner-time to-morra, you’d be willin’, maybe, to let me bring me nephew in here just for the couple of hours he has to stop—comin’ on the half-past two train he is, and lavin’ on the five—and loan me the fire to make him a cup of me own tay. For then, sir, you see, he could niver say a word to anybody except that I was livin’ rael dacint and comfortable—ay, bedad, it is so,” she said, glancing wistfully round the ruddily-lighted room. “But it’s a terrible dale to be axin’ you; and very belike ’twill be a pourin’ wet day, and you not stirrin’ out,” she added, looking behind her as if she had several minds to vanish away through the dim rain without waiting for an answer.

I lost no time in cordially assenting to her plan, and the sympathy inspired by a sincere commiseration for her dilemma, caught as she was between two scathing fires of pride, enabled me, I believe, to convince her that I really expected to derive some benefit from the proposed arrangement, as I pointed out how, only for her presence there, the house would be left empty all the afternoon, a probable prey to passing tramps. I mentioned also that, if I happened to appear upon the scene, it might be in the character of her lodger. These suggestions seemed to relieve her mind. But as she was turning to go, a difficulty occurred to me.

“How will your nephew find his way here, Mrs Daly?” I said. “If he asks it, you know, they’ll direct him to the wrong place.”

“Why, sir,” she said, “I was intindin’ to step over wid meself and meet him at the Newtownbailey station. I’ll get him aisy enough, for there does mostly be no such great throng on the platforrm”—(arrivals generally averaged about three)—“that I’d have much throuble sortin’ him out. And then I could bring him along back wid me as handy as anythin’.”

“It’s a long walk for you, though,” said I, for Newtownbailey is a good two miles from Carrickcrum, and a mile was a mile indeed, at the little old woman’s “gait o’ goin’.”

“Sure I’m well used to it,” said she, “I do be thravellin’ it these times every Saturday after me few sugar-sticks. At Gaffney’s here I was gettin’ them for a great while, but ever since I set up the Sentrall Imporum, they’re chargin’ me fi’pince a dozen, and that I couldn’t afford. Ould Gaffney himself he sez to me the laste they could do was to be puttin’ on a pinny to the price, now that I’d took to keep such a grand place. But fourpince is all I have to pay at Newtownbailey.”

“That was a spiteful trick,” I said. And a reply came from without, as the speaker departed over the slippery, wet flags:

“What can you get from a hog but a grunt?” said Mrs Daly.

The morrow was not wet, as she had foreboded, but rather sultry and showery. In the morning, with the help of my friend the Doctor’s wife, I made some preparations for my coming guest. Part of these consisted in hanging up on my wall-hooks sundry warm woollen skirts and bodices, and a fine lilac-ribboned cap, with respect to which I cherished designs. Also I spread a table with the materials for a tea, comprising a richly-speckled barn-brack, and a seed-cake pinkly frosted.

I meant to go a-sketching for the day, but had not yet started when, about noon, I saw Mrs Daly toiling up to the door laden with a large basket—come, no doubt, to make final arrangements, before proceeding to fetch her nephew from the station. I was in the little room adjoining the kitchen, and, as the door stood slightly ajar, I could watch her unpack her basket. Evidently she had determined to trespass upon my hospitality only to the extent of house-room, for she produced several sods of turf, besides cups, saucers, and teapot (which held a drop of milk), paper wisps of tea and sugar, and half a loaf of bread. These being set on the table, I saw her, to my mortification, remove from it the cakes and other eatables, and stow them away carefully out of sight in a press. I noticed, too, that she laid on the shelf along with them a pair of her knitted socks, which, I conjectured—rightly, as I afterwards learned—were a present to me and a peace-offering to her pride. I blamed myself for not having foreseen this preliminary visit, and deferred my preparations until a time when she would have no opportunity to cancel them. And at first I thought of lingering behind, and re-arranging the tea-table when she had gone; but upon reflection it seemed more forbearing to leave her to her own devices; so I slipped away unobserved.

The picture of the Sentrall Imporeom still lacked a few finishing touches, which I had, fortunately, resolved to give it in the course of that day; and I was at work down there towards three o’clock, when Mrs Daly drove by on a car, sitting beside a well-dressed, middle-aged man. She wore her fine Sunday shawl, whose ample folds of cream and fawn colour could charitably cover many defects in a body’s toilette, and she held up her head with an air of resolute dignity, which grew almost defiant at sight of her residence and business premises. She gave me a stately nod as she passed, turning then to her companion with some remark which was, I fancied, explanatory and apologetic. I watched them round the corner, regretting that they were on their way to such frugal fare, and hoping that the entertainment might go off satisfactorily, despite Mrs Daly’s refusal of my contributions to its success.

The afternoon slid by rapidly on the rollers of my work, which was interrupted by the occurrence of more than one sharp thundery shower. I was still struggling to catch the effect of a sunbeam blinking Turneresquely on a little pile of shrivelled oranges, and snatched away capriciously by shifting clouds, when the car re-appeared, trotting back very fast with the same load as before.

“Sure, me nephew,” Mrs Daly told me afterwards, “found himself so comfortable up above there, and was in such an admiration of the grand little room, that he sted talkin’ of all manner till he’d left himself scarce betther than a short quarther of an hour to git his thrain, so he bid the man dhrive for every cent he was worth. He’s a queer, outlandish way of spakin’. And I sez to him I had some shoppin’ to do in the village, so he was givin’ me a lift.”

Just as the car passed between my easel and the beech, a fierce flicker of lightning quivered through the boughs, causing the horse to shy with a wide-sweeping swerve, which brought the car-wheel full tilt against the rickety table, whose flimsy boards fell asunder, strewing their burdens around, while the sudden jerk flung the old woman on the road.

For a moment I feared some damage more tragical than that sustained by the ruined stall; but Mrs Daly picked herself up with great promptitude, and without any apparent injury. Her presence of mind was evidently unscathed, for she at once remarked, calmly surveying the wreck—

“Bedad, now, that’ll be a loss to whatever poor body owns it.”

“I expect it will, indeed,” said her nephew, who looked much more perturbed than she. “It’s considerable of a smash, anyway. But look here, Aunt Anne, perhaps you’d have no objection to taking charge of the dollars to make all square? Because, if you’re really none the worse for your fall, I must be making tracks for the depôt, or I’ll not get on the cars this evening at all; and I wouldn’t miss them for a long figure, and that’s a fact.”

He was pulling out a bank-note, but his aunt waved it away superbly.

“Ah, no, lad; not be any manner of manes,” she said. “Sure, what matter about it? They were on’y a thrash of ould sticks.”

“Speak for yourself, Mrs Daly,” I said. “The person they belong to wouldn’t thank you.”

“That’s so, sir,” said the stranger, who was obviously divided between anxiety to do justice and to avoid delay. “I wonder now would _you_ have the goodness to pass this on to the proper party?”

I assented to the proposal with an alacrity which, had it not been for his own hurry, might have struck him as suspicious; whereupon he handed me the note, and drove away. He had placed, I was gratified to learn, ten pounds’ worth of confidence in me at first sight.

Long and elaborate, however, were the arguments which I had to use before Mrs Daly would permit me to execute his commission. They were tedious to recapitulate, and the most effective of them was probably the least logical—that, namely, which urged the exultation to be presumed in the mean Gaffneys at her unretrieved disaster. Her scruples yielded to a judicious insistence upon this, and she suffered the making of her fortune. For her acquisition of ten pounds was nothing less than that, as will be readily understood by anyone who has tried to live, for any length of time, on the profits arising from the sale of a dozen half-penny sugar-sticks. It enabled her to rent a much superior dwelling with a window, and to invest in quite a large assortment of miscellaneous goods for exhibition behind the panes, besides adding to her stock of “chuckens”; and, according to latest reports, she was doing grandly. But the Sentrall Imporeom no longer exists. A few days after the accident, the gaudy blue-and-red board was found to have been removed from the beech-trunk—a deed with which the parodied Gaffneys were credited, and at which Mrs Daly felt rather aggrieved, as she had wished to set it over her new door, having given up the hardships of an open-air stall. However, she has plenty of things to pride herself on these times. And, as she moralised: “It’s the quare low-lived tricks people does be at by way of settin’ themselves up.”

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, inconsistent or archaic usage, and dialect have been left unchanged.

Pg 27: ‘little intercouse’ replaced by ‘little intercourse’. Pg 49: ‘incident befel’ replaced by ‘incident befell’. Pg 72: ‘spinister aunts’ replaced by ‘spinster aunts’. Pg 110: ‘at the the three’ replaced by ‘at the three’. Pg 114: ‘up their by’ replaced by ‘up there by’. Pg 129: ‘rest of the the’ replaced by ‘rest of the’. Pg 240: ‘she produeed’ replaced by ‘she produced’. Pg 287: ‘negligable threats’ replaced by ‘negligible threats’.