A TEA PARTY
"I've seen that man of yours before," said Patsy, turning round and
gazing at the woman.
He felt the most extraordinary pity for her. She must have been a
pretty girl once, he thought, noticing the small pure outlines of the
face. The child was like her, not like the ruffian who had just set
off in the direction of Conneely's Hotel. A pretty boy, with soft,
pale silken hair and blue eyes that looked scared. Patsy remembered
his own childhood with the terrible old grandfather, and his heart was
soft with compassion.
"I don't think so, sir," said the woman. She was English by her voice.
"He hasn't been in these parts before."
Patsy noticed with the same sharp pity which seemed to hurt him, that
she trembled. She was tired and hungry, perhaps; not cold, surely, in
this glorious June sunshine.
"Sit down," he said, "sit down." He indicated a stone seat by the open
door of the house. "You are tired, my poor girl. I've put the kettle
on. It'll be boilin' by this time. I'll wet the cup of tay and it'll
do you good."
There was no one in the stable-yard to observe the strange sight of the
stud-groom giving a meal to the tramping woman and her child. He
brought out a little cloth and spread it on the stone seat. Then he
fetched the cups and saucers, one by one.
"Let me help you, sir," said the woman. "I was a servant in a good
house before I had the misfortune to marry."
There had been some strange delicacy in Patsy's mind which had induced
him to have the outdoor tea rather than a less troublesome arrangement
within doors. Perhaps he had an instinctive knowledge of what the
woman's husband might be capable of in the way of thought or speech.
"Sit down there, Georgie," said the woman to the child, with a kind of
passionate tenderness. "He's too little, so he is," she addressed
Patsy Kenny, "for the load o' cans and pots he has to carry. His bones
are but soft yet."
"Cans and pots?"
"There, beyond the gate. We sell them as we go along. When they're
sold we buy more. We had a donkey-cart, but ... we had to sell it. We
only take now what Georgie and me can carry."
"And your husband?"
"He carries nought. He doesn't hold with a man carrying things."
Patsy said nothing. What was the matter with him that he felt such a
pain of pity and such a rage of anger? He had felt the like before for
an ill-treated animal. Ill-treated humans had not often entered his
experience, since he lived so much to himself.
He went to the gate leading to the back avenue and looked out. Hidden
by the gate-post were a number of pots and pans and bright glittering
new cans. A little away lay another heap. He stooped. There was a
contrivance, something like a yoke for the shoulders, to which the cans
were attached. He had seen, also in England, gipsy carts covered with
such wares. He had not known that human shoulders could be adapted to
this burden.
"God help ye," he said, coming back. "'Tis too much for you, let alone
the child. The polis should see to it."
"He takes the load from the boy before we come to a village," she said,
nodding her head the way the man had gone.
It was wonderful to see how quickly and deftly the woman set out the
tea-things, made the tea, using much less than Patsy's liberal
allowance, and cut bread and butter. Patsy found a few new-laid eggs
and put them on to boil. The child sat in the shade: Patsy had found
him a chair, made of ropes of straw, to rest on instead of the cold
stone. He sat in a relaxed way as though all his muscles were limp,
taking no heed of the dog that sniffed about him. Dead-tired, Patsy
thought, and loathed the muscular ruffian who went free while a child
and a woman bore the burdens.
It was pretty to see the woman coaxing the child to eat, forgetting
herself. Patsy looked about the familiar place and saw it strange with
an appearance of domesticity. The creature was very gentle, he said to
himself, and she was decent. Her poor clothes were tidy, and the boy's
likewise. Their boots caused a queer pang in Patsy's heart. They were
disgraceful boots, bulging at the sides, broken: he had noticed that
the boy shuffled as he walked.
The woman sat holding her tea-cup in her hand, looking around the yard.
Patsy's house had a little yard to itself off the stable-yard proper.
In the middle was a bed in which there was a rose-tree with pinks and
pansies growing about its roots, Patsy's garden, of which he was very
proud.
"It's a nice little spot you have here," she said, with a sigh. The
canary, which hung by the door in a cage, sent out a hard bright runlet
of song. The dog lay on her side with one brown eye fixed on her
master. One of the big cats, which kept the stables free of rats and
made company for the horses in winter, came delicately and rubbed
himself against Patsy's blue hand-knitted stockings. Her eyes roved
enviously about, taking in the quiet peacefulness of the scene.
"I'll be washin' up for you before I go," she said.
"Sure I'm used to doin' for myself," returned Patsy.
"You've no wife?" she said; and looked down at the boy where he lay
back wearily in the straw chair.
"I'm a bachelor boy," said Patsy.
Her eye considered her host in a way that caused Patsy a curious
internal shyness, not altogether unpleasant.
"A pity," said she. "It would be a nice little place for a woman and a
child."
Then she straightened herself and stood up. She had made a very good
meal.
"I saw where the basin was in the scullery," she said. "Don't you
trouble. It's a woman's work, not a man's. You stay here and talk to
Georgie."
He carried in the tray when she had piled it with cups and saucers.
Otherwise he obeyed her. Better if that ruffian came back he should
find him talking to Georgie rather than helping the woman to wash up.
But Georgie was very uncommunicative. He seemed too tired to talk. He
too had not done so badly with the meal once he had begun. After a
while his head fell a little to one side and he slept.
Patsy sat where he was. He could hear the noise of water flowing
inside the house and the chink of cups and saucers in process of
washing up. Not for worlds would he have entered the house. He was
thinking strange thoughts. For the first time he was touched by a
woman, this poor, ill-clad, tramping woman, the wife of an evident
scoundrel, touched to the heart for her and her child. The happy,
pretty girls who had looked shy invitation at him had not appealed.
They had, one by one, put him down as a dry old bachelor and taken
their charms elsewhere. Patsy had never missed wife or child. He
would have said himself that he had enough to think of, with her
Ladyship and the Master and Mr. Terry, enough to fill his heart.
Not that he felt anything beyond an immense compassion for these poor
victims of man's cruelty. Perhaps with such a person as Patsy Kenny
compassion would serve for love always. "The creatures!" he said to
himself, "the creatures! Sure it isn't the hard ways of the world
they're fit for at all."
The woman emerged from the cottage, moving with a gentle softness.
There was nothing of the tramp about her beyond the broken boots, the
hat which had obviously been under the weather, the poor clothes. She
sat down beside Patsy Kenny and spoke in a low voice for fear of waking
the sleeping child.
"It is a hard road he has to travel for one so young," she said, and he
noticed that she looked quickly towards the gate.
"It is," said Patsy Kenny. "Too hard. He had no right to be carryin'
all that tinker's stuff. That man of yours, my girl, oughtn't to be
let do it."
A little colour came to the woman's cheek.
"We've run away from him over and over," she said. "He's always
tracked us down. Time and time again I was doin' well and Georgie at
school, but he always found us: I used to say my prayers to be
delivered from him, but I never was: I don't suppose I ever will be
now. I can't hide from him. I wouldn't mind for myself, if it wasn't
for Georgie. He'll kill Georgie."
"How long have you been at it?" Patsy Kenny asked quietly.
"This sort of life? He found us in Leicestershire three months ago. I
was in a place with one lady. She was kind and let me have Georgie.
She always said she'd never have known there was a child in the house.
Georgie went to school and came home of afternoons. It was a quiet,
peaceful spot. Baker found me again. It wasn't the first time by many
he dragged us out on the road. He sold all my clothes as well as
takin' my savin's. He said there was money for him over here. I don't
see no sign of it. The life will kill Georgie. We tramped from
Dublin: with the last of my money Baker bought the tins to keep us
goin' on the road. It was bad in the cold, wet weather last month."
"Have you no one at all belongin' to you?" Patsy asked in a low voice.
"Sisters and brothers, all respectable. My parents are dead. When I
took Baker I turned my back on them all."
Patsy's mind was working hard. There must be some help for the woman's
case. It could not be law that this ruffian should have the power to
drag his wife and child after him, loading them with burdens they were
not fit to carry. The creature knew no better than to yield to him.
The Master was a magistrate and a kindly one. He was always settling
disputes of one kind or another. Patsy thought of bidding her wait
where she was till the Master could be found.
He looked up from his thoughts and saw that Mr. Baker had come back.
His face was very red and shiny. He wore a truculent look.
"'Ullo!" he said thickly. "'Ere's quite a family party. 'Ope you've
been enjoyin' of yourselves as I 'ave, subjec' to _re_strictions. A
bob don't go fur in liquor now-a-days. You might ha' made it two."
"One seems to have been quite enough for you," said Patsy, with a light
of battle in eyes no longer dreamy.
"I don't deny as I 'ad a bob myself to spend," said the ruffian.
"'Ere, you, Georgie! You wake up, you lazy young devil! 'Tis time we
was on the road."
Patsy stepped between the man and the child who had come out of his
sleep with a cry of fear. He put a open hand on Mr. Baker's chest and
pushed him backward. Somewhat contrary to his expectations the man did
not resent his action, beyond remarking that no one had the right to
interfere between a man and his kid.
"Now it comes to that," he said, with a sudden change to jocularity,
"if so be as you've a fancy for 'er I'd sell her for five quid an'
throw in the kid. It's no catch draggin' 'em round an' me 'avin' to
carry the cans 'arf the time because o' your blasted coppers."
The full enormity of the speech seemed to reveal itself only gradually
to Patsy's mind. He turned red and then pale. The poor woman was
quivering as though a lash had struck her.
"You're a bad brute," said Patsy quietly. "The woman's too good for
you."
"You can 'ave her for nothink if you like. She never was much good to
me."
He sat down suddenly in the chair Georgie had left empty.
"I want to see your boss," he said: and his tone was bullying.
"I was thinkin' about that myself," said Patsy.
"You go along the road an' wait for me," he said with a sudden ferocity
which made the woman start. "Off with ye now. I'll come up with ye:
unless this gentleman 'ud make it a matter of a five-pun' note."
"Hold your dirty tongue," said Patsy, and landed Mr. Baker one in the
chest.
The man rushed at him with his head down, a shower of foul words coming
from his lips. Before anything could happen some one
intervened,--Terry O'Gara, dazzlingly clean as he always looked.
"Here, you keep quiet, you ruffian!" he said, delivering a very neat
blow just under the man's chin. "What is it all about, Patsy? Hadn't
I better send for the police?"
Mr. Baker had fallen back against the stone bench and subsided on to
it, feeling his jaw bone.
"I'll make you pay for this yere conduck to an 'armless man wot was
doin' nothink," he growled.
Something floated into Patsy's mind, vague, terrible. Before he could
grasp it another person joined the group,--Sir Shawn O'Gara.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Who is this person?"
His face changed. Patsy Kenny, who was watching him, saw the change.
He had grown livid, his lips blue. Was he ill? Was he going to fall?
Before Patsy could do anything he recovered himself and spoke.
"You have business with me?" he said to the tramp.
"Yes, sir." Mr. Baker was suddenly cringingly respectful. "I came
'ere to talk business an' was set upon by this yere man o' yourn
somethink crool. I'd sack him if I was you. Your 'orses wouldn't be
safe with 'im, 'im bein' so 'ot-tempered."
Sir Shawn still looked very ill. Patsy had once seen a person in a bad
heart-seizure. Was Sir Shawn's heart affected? Small mottled patches
of a purple colour had come out on the smooth darkness of his skin.
Angina. That was what the doctor called it in the case of that other
person. Had that mysterious, terrible disease laid hold on the Master?
He had not looked well for many a day. Patsy had wondered that the
Mistress did not see it, was not disturbed by it, seeing how fond a
wife she was. His heart sank with fear for the Master.
"Let me deal with him, father," said Terry, looking like a young god in
contrast with the unpleasant Mr. Baker.
"I know this man," Sir Shawn said, quietly. "He once rendered me a
service."
"When I were gamekeeper over to Ashbridge 'All," said Mr. Baker
eagerly, "you'd a bin shot but for me. Some gents will never learn 'ow
'to 'old their guns. I knocked the barrel up just in the nick. That
Mr. Lascelles, 'e weren't safe."
Ashbridge! Oh--so the man had been employed at Ashbridge Hall, Lord
Trentham's place, some thirty miles away on the edge of Lough Aske.
How long ago? Patsy kept asking himself the question. He looked after
Sir Shawn and Mr. Baker as they went away in the direction of the
house. Sir Shawn had an official room with a door opening out on to
the grounds, so that the many people who came to consult him on one
business or another need not enter through the house.
"That fellow's face would hang him anywhere," said Terry O'Gara. "I
wonder what amount of villainy lies between a gamekeeper's place at
Ashbridge and the brute he is to-day?"
"God help them that are in his power," Patsy Kenny said fervently.
Then he went to the gate and looked out. The pots and pans and cans
had disappeared. Down the long straight road there was no one in
sight. The woman and child had vanished.
Oddly enough he was disturbed by the noise Mustapha was still making in
his box-stall.
"I shouldn't be surprised now if he was to be a foal of Spitfire," he
said. "I did hear she was bought by a man somewhere about Lewy
mountain. The little man we bought him from was a mountainy man, if he
wasn't a fairy."