MATCHMAKING IN ARDENOO
There was of course a good deal of talk among the neighbours about all
that took place at Greenan-more, just soon after old Flanagan dying
there. To say nothing of the queer way Jim Cassidy appeared (as they
said), to the two girls, that Sunday evening, when they were out in the
hayfield, with old Heffernan ... and anyway, nothing was farther from
Nelly’s thoughts then than the same Jim! whatever poor Christina may
have had in her mind!... To say nothing of this at all, wasn’t it a
shocking affair to see a fine, good girl like Christina, going out of
this world the way she did! no one to know what became of her, no more
than if she never had been there at all!
Still, the people didn’t speak so much over it as you might expect.
They felt Nelly and Jim wouldn’t like it. Besides, there was talk of
Christina’s being “away”; and as every one knows, it doesn’t answer to
be too free-spoken about the Good People.
Very little of the talk reached Mickey Heffernan, as usual. He lived
very backwards, as has been said; he heard little, and he said less.
It was the fashion he had, and it served him well. It did now, for it
helped him to believe that no one knew a word about his having wanted
little Nelly Flanagan for himself. In fact, very few did and they soon
forgot it, there was so much else to be talked about. Mickey was very
proud to think that the business with Nelly had gone no further; any
man would feel the same. But instead of this taking the edge off him
for getting married, it only made him the more anxious to hear of some
other girl that would come in upon the floor of the Furry Farm. Julia
was gone out of his way; so why would he not strive to bring a wife in
there?
Little Kitty Dempsey was the next he looked to get; and a very curious
way that came about. Not that any man was to be blamed for fancying
Kitty! She had every one’s good word, the same little girl.
“A very nice little cut of a person,” it would be said of her,
“agreeable and pleasant-spoken in herself; noways uppish or short with
any one. And the darlint blue eyes of her, that she can say what she
chooses with! Sometimes they’ll laugh, like running water in sunshine;
and again, they’ll fill up, if she’s fretted, till they’d remind you
of nothing so much as a shower of an April day. And as straight she is
as a rush, and as light on her foot as a willy-wagtail; like a young
larch tree, slim and upright; and wouldn’t any one sooner be looking at
the like of that than at one that has been twisted and bent by the wind
on the side of a hill, or has had the half of it ett away by a hungry
colt? Oh, there’s some girls that there does be a power of marrying
on, before they can be settled! But troth! that’s not so with Kitty
Dempsey!”
In fact, at this time, though Kitty was young yet, it was the wonder of
Ardenoo that she wasn’t married long ago, for as they said, it wasn’t
her looks stood in her way; though she never got to be as rosy in the
face and _flauhoolich_[11] as her sisters all were. Many a time they
blamed Kitty for that, as if she could help how she looked! But the
father, old Dick Dempsey, would whisper to Kitty:
“Never mind, _asthore_! it isn’t always the big people that reaps the
harvest, Kitty!”
He was very nice and gay, the poor man, and always had a great wish
for Kitty, and stood up for her whenever he could. But Kitty was the
youngest of a long family; and as you may often notice in that case,
she seemed to come in for the fag-end of everything.
When she was no more than a child, she could see plain enough that
there wasn’t a dance or a fair, a wake or a wedding far or near, but
all the other girls would go off to, and have their fling of whatever
fun was to be had. And they would say to Kitty, “Better for you stop at
home and let your hair grow! you’ll have your turn by and by!”
But there was not really much difference in age between Kitty and the
next sister; only one had to stop at home, and somehow, Kitty was more
agreeable to do that than any of the others. Though, as she grew up
more, she often had a wish to go about, like another, and get her share
of sport; and when they’d say, she’d have to wait another little while,
and then let her take her turn, “To-morrow’s a long day!” Kitty would
cry. But that never did her any good.
She would feel it lonely enough, of an evening, when the others were
away off sporting somewhere, and only the old father and mother left
about the place. The only consolation Kitty had those times was when
she’d go off to the well for the can of water. Dan Grennan would be
very apt to be there or somewhere about, and then, of course, he’d
get the water for her to carry it home, as far as the back of the
turf-clamp. Dan was a neighbour, a decent, quiet boy, what we call a
“lone bird,” for he had no one belonging to him in the place.
Well and good; this got to be the habit most evenings, till Kitty’s
mother took notice that the water began to be very late coming in for
her cup of tea. So, out with her, one time, and she slipped along, very
quiet and easy, till she heard a laugh from behind the turf-clamp.
Round it she went; and there were Kitty and Dan, with the can of water
on the ground between them.
There’s where they were in error, not to have talked their fill below
at the well, and have done with the thing. But sure, young people are
all the same. When they begin to chatter and talk with one another,
they get it as hard to stop as if it was the sea they were striving to
empty out with a sieve.
It chanced that old Mrs. Dempsey was very thirsty at that present time,
which was what maybe had her so fractious. But indeed, at the best of
times, the turn of a straw would leave her as cross as an armful of
cats, she was so short in the temper.
“Well, Dan, me fine fellah!” she said; “and is it you that is in it?”
“It is, Mrs. Dempsey, mam,” answered Dan, quite civilly; and then he
added, “and no harm in that, I hope?”
He should not have said that; giving her an opening.
“Troth, I dunno about that!” said she, and was twice as vexed, because
poor Dan was so quiet-spoken with her; “that depends,” she says, “but
a boy that has nothing between him and the world only his two hands
has no call in life,” she says, “to be here, _colloguing_[12] with my
dauther!”
Mrs. Dempsey was a Cusack, and held herself very high. She turned to
Kitty, that was as red as roses by then.
“Off with ye, and bring in that water, that I’m sick and tired waiting
on!”
Kitty was ready enough to go. Ashamed she felt, to have that word said
to Dan, and she by. She went off, without giving him word or look. How
could she, with the mother stumping along behind her, as big as a bush
and as red as a turkey-cock!
“And she gobbling out of her, too!” said Dan to himself, as he sneaked
off, with a very sore heart. He was a fine, big, able boy, that you
would never think troubled his head about anything. But boys like that
have times that they want comforting, as well as another. Dan was out
of a job then, and he was intended to ask an advice of Kitty, whether
he ought to go to England for the harvest or not, only when he saw her,
he forgot everything else except little Kitty Dempsey. He was not to be
blamed for that. You would maybe have done the same yourself.
But the very next day after Mrs. Dempsey giving him his walking-papers,
as I said, Dan got a job of driving a lot of cattle out to Dublin
market. And when he had that done, he bobbed up against a comrade-boy
of his own, and this boy was after taking his passage to America. And
he was so lonesome in himself, to be going away, that he offered the
lend of money to Dan, the way they could go together. I needn’t say Dan
jumped at the chance.
But he had to start off as he stood; and no one at Ardenoo knew a word
about his going, for long enough. So there was many a mile of salt
water between poor Dan and Kitty, and still Mrs. Dempsey would be going
to the well herself of an evening. It was the price of her, to be
putting such rounds upon herself, and for what? But as Dan said long
after, when he and Kitty would be talking over things, “Divil’s cure to
them that has a bad suspicion of others!”
Kitty used to fret a good deal, wondering how it was that she never
saw Dan nor heard anything about him, since the time her mother caught
her and him together behind the turf-clamp. But she passed no remarks
to man nor mortal. And one day that she and the mother were at Melia’s
shop, where the post-office is, a letter was slipped to Kitty, that no
one saw only herself. Mrs. Melia knew well the sort old Mrs. Dempsey
was, and so did every one else about Ardenoo.
Kitty had to keep that letter in her pocket, and it burning a hole
there, till she was going to bed that night before she had any
opportunity of opening it. What was there inside of it, only a picture
of Dan, all done out so grand and fine, that you would scarcely know it
to be Dan at all, only his name was written under it. And on the back
of the picture there was this verse:
When this you see,
Then think of me, D. G.
So Kitty was not much the wiser about what had happened, when she got
this from Dan. But not long afterwards, she got word that it was in
America he was, and had good pay there. And then no one seemed to know
much more about Dan.
It wasn’t too long after this, that old Dick Dempsey, himself, Kitty’s
father, took and died on them; “harished out of the world,” some said,
by the wife he had, that could never think anything right that he did;
or any one else, for that matter, except herself. There’s a power of
people like Mrs. Dempsey.
It was the woe day for poor Kitty, when her father was gone, and she
and the mother left to manage for themselves. By this time all the
others were married, or gone off to America. And of course they all
said among themselves, that the farm that had reared the whole of them,
and had given snug fortunes to every girl that married out of it, ought
to be able to keep Kitty and the mother in the greatest of comfort.
So it should too; only there chanced to be a few bad seasons, when the
grass was short ... or the rain didn’t come till it wasn’t wanted, and
so the crops got spoilt in the saving. Every one else about Ardenoo was
in the same boat. Except for this: Mrs. Dempsey was of the opinion that
they were all fools but herself. That kept her down worse. She would
take no advice. She thought she knew better than men that had been
farming all their lives, while she had been rearing chickens and making
butter. Her great idea was, to spend nothing. She grudged doing that,
more than anything.
Now it is well known that the best fertiliser you can use on land is,
money. If you treat your land well, it will treat you well; a thing
that is true of more than farming.
But with Mrs. Dempsey it was take all and give nothing; above all, for
labour. She would keep no help for the house. So it was Kitty! here;
and Kitty! there, from dawn to dark. Kitty was never done. She was the
most willing little creature you could find in a day’s walk; as good as
ever was wet with water. But what avails all one girl can do on a farm?
with poultry and milk, turkeys and pigs, and then be expected as well
to do haymaking, or the thinning of turnips, or dropping potatoes, and
I don’t know what all besides. It was only folly to think any one pair
of hands could overtake all that.
And here again was another reason why poor Kitty was not to have her
chance of a bit of sport like another. At first, as I explained, she
had to step one side, in order that the sisters that were older, the
“ones that were next the door,” as they are called at Ardenoo, could
have their fling, there were so many of them there. And secondly she
had to stop at home now, because they were _not_ there! no one in the
place, only the old mother and Kitty. So that is how she never had any
other “coort” except Dan; and of course then she thought all the more
of him; the same as a hen with only one chicken. She’ll fuss and cluck
as much for it as if she had the whole clutch.
Girls that are allowed a bit of liberty, the way they can be putting a
whole lot of boys through their hands, as some do, are better off in a
way than Kitty was with Dan.
“One thing moiders another!” as the man with the toothache said, when
he felt the pain going into his ear. And if a girl has Phil, and Jack,
Mike, and Pat as well as Art, it’s likely she’ll not fret too much
about any of them if they go off, as Dan did.
However, you never know what turn a young mind will take. People
differ, as well as the things they happen up against. Kitty wasn’t like
other girls; and those that knew her best never wished that she was.
All the same, good and contented as she strove to be, it was hard
on her! Year in, year out, going on the one old gait; her nose for
ever to the grindstone. And along with all, if anything went wrong,
Mrs. Dempsey would take and scold at Kitty, most bitterly, as if the
girl was to be blamed when the potatoes turned black, or the oats got
lodged, beaten into the ground with the heavy dreeps of rain.
As for the fow! That was what had the old woman more annoyed than
anything. The rage she got into, one season, when a lot of young
goslings died! She said it was what Kitty had neglected them, and that
she cared for nothing, only idling her time over her geranium-pot. Now
it was true that Kitty did think a lot of that flower, and no one but
herself knew, or cared, that it was Dan Grennan that had brought it to
her, and it only a little weeny bit of a thing. Kitty had minded it
so well, that it flourished up the finest ever was seen. She was very
fond of flowers, but any little bit of a garden that ever she made,
something happened it; either the pigs rooted it, or the hens tore it
about. So to keep her geranium-pot safe, it was up on top of the pump
she had it, the time the goslings died.
Mrs. Dempsey was making for it, to fling it pot and all out of that,
when, behold ye! she was took bad all of a sudden. Some kind of Blessed
Sickness it was; and in the clap of your hand, it left her speechless,
and with no power of herself from the waist down, ever after. In fact
she didn’t last too long after this happening. But, of course, Kitty
nor no one could know but she might live for years yet.
When she was laid up that way, it left Kitty there, nothing but a bird
alone, as you might say; the mother good for nothing, only having to
be fed and minded, the same as an infant child, and twice as hard to
please as any baby. Kitty was that tender-hearted, that she fretted,
night, noon, and morning, when the old woman wasn’t able to speak;
though what all the neighbours were saying was, “Won’t poor Kitty have
great ease, now that the mother’s tongue is stopped, the ould torment!”
But to listen to Kitty, you would believe there never was another
mother so good on the face of the earth, as what she had herself.
Shortly after this taking place with the Dempseys, the fair-day of
Timahoe came round. Dark Moll Reilly was in it, of course, herself and
her fiddle. No wake nor wedding nor sport of any kind was right about
Ardenoo, without Moll.
There was people of the opinion that the dark woman could see more than
she let on to be able to; and that it was just a gait of going she
put on, the way she could get a better acquaintance with things that
were not meant for her. Certain it is that there wasn’t a stir, far or
near, or anything going on about Ardenoo, but what Moll always had the
first whimper of it. But no one ever heard a bad word from her, about
any son of men; nor she wouldn’t either. She knew only too well, that
she ought to be careful, and not have the people afraid of her tongue.
In that way, she had many a snug stopping-place, where she was always
made welcome, with her fiddle and her chat about everything, because
the people felt Moll wasn’t one to carry stories. Besides, she was a
knowledgeable person, and very understanding, and had made up many a
match among the neighbours at Ardenoo.
Going away from the fair she was, this day, when Big Cusack, that was
a brother of Mrs. Dempsey’s, overtook her on the road, and asked her
would she sit up on the side-car with him, and he could be giving her a
lift as far as he was going her way.
“I’m thankful to ye, sir,” said Moll, “but I wouldn’t wish to be too
troublesome....”
“Not the least trouble in life!” he said, and gave her his hand across
the well of the car, to help her up. And then, when they were jogging
on again, they fell into chat and the whole topic between them was,
poor Kitty Dempsey and the way she was left with the helpless old
mother; and she with ne’er a one in it but herself.
“But sure, she needn’t be so!” said Moll. “There’s plenty of boys would
be glad enough to be sending in their papers there ... and she your
niece, too, Mr. Cusack!”
“Troth, I’m not so sure about the boys at all!” said Big Cusack; “the
most of them, they put a high figure on themselves now. They’re not to
be caught with chaff, these times. Kitty Dempsey, indeed, with no stock
to speak of on the farm! And it all racked out, the mother taking in
grazing cattle, and letting them eat the roots out of the pasture ...
and the ditches choked ... and fences wanting to be made up ... let
alone the two years’ rent that’s owing on the place this minute....”
He had a sup taken at that time, or he wouldn’t have been so talkative.
“Do you tell me that! Dear, dear!” said Moll; though well she knew it
all before he spoke. But there’s no way so good to flatter people up,
as to listen to them talking as if it was all new to you, although you
might have the thing twice as well off, as they would that were telling
it. Dark Moll was well aware of this. Besides, being old and poor, as
well as blind, the creature! of course she knew she ought to be very
humble in herself. So she had the habit, as I said before, of being
very careful and exact in what she would say, and in particular to a
man like Big Cusack, a strong farmer that had a right to every respect.
“I do tell you that, and, moreover, I’m sure of it!” says he in answer.
“Troth, then, and I’m not one bit sure!” said Moll, “askin’ your pardon
and grantin’ your grace for the word, Mr. Cusack! But I think, and not
alone that, but it’s too sure I am that there’s plenty would jump at
little Kitty Dempsey, ould mother and all. Sure, she can’t last for
ever, God help her! and let her do her best. I know one, anyway, that
I’m too sure would take her,” says Moll, “this instant minute; a qui’t,
settled boy, wid money in the bank, as well as the snuggest place you
need ask to lay an eye upon! And he wanting a woman there, this len’th
of time! And well you know that I’m only saying what’s the truth!”
“Who is it you’re speaking of?” asks Cusack.
“Why, who but Mickey Heffernan!” said Moll, “away off at the
Furry Farm; he’s after marrying the sister Julia to a boy from
Clough-na-Rinka ... one of the Caffreys ... but that’s no consarn of
a man like you, Mr. Cusack! But poor Mickey hasn’t one to do a hand’s
turn for him now, barring himself. Sure he had a right to have looked
into the thing before this, and not be leaving himself the way he is.
And now he’s driving about the country, I hear, looking for a wife; and
his spokesman with him....”
“I have no great acquaintance with the man,” said Cusack.
“No, nor couldn’t,” said Moll; “Mickey was like the rest of the
Heffernans, great always at keeping himself to himself. And the
lonesome place he has! But sure, if it was arranged, can’t he come to
live at Dempsey’s, and be seeing after the two places from there, quite
handy?”
“That might answer,” says Cusack. “Middling ould he is, I believe?”
“No more than sixty, if he’s that, itself,” said Moll; “and as sound
as a trout; ay, and maybe would be better to Kitty than one of them
young bloomin’ boys that’s going these times, the sorra much good they
are only spreeing and play-acting.... But Mickey is not that way of
thinking ... real sober and.... Let me down off o’ the car, Mr. Cusack,
sir, if you please.... It’s to Biddy Fay’s I’m going for the night....”
“We’re past it,” said Cusack.
Moll knew that, as well as he did. But it came more natural to her to
tell a lie than the truth, even if it was to do her no good itself.
“Past the turn to Biddy’s are we? but sure we can’t be far,” said Moll;
“just stop if you please, sir, and let me down and give me a twist
round to set me going right, and may the Lord reward ye for helping the
poor dark ould woman!”
So Cusack did that; but it wasn’t to Biddy Fay’s Moll was steering; no,
but passed on, and made for the Furry Farm, as hard as she could go.
It was a long way, and she couldn’t make it that night at all. But the
next evening she got to Mickey Heffernan’s right enough.
There was no one within at that time, except the boy that was spokesman
to Mickey in looking for the wife. He was a neighbour’s son, well known
to Moll.
“So you haven’t Mickey marrit yet?” said Moll, when they had passed one
another the time of day.
“No, faith!” said the boy; “and sick and tired I am of the job! God and
the world wouldn’t plase Heffernan with a wife!”
“Och, wait till your own turn comes round, me hayro! maybe you’ll have
picking and choosing then....”
“When I want a wife, I’ll see to do the thing myself!” said the boy;
“I’ll have no interference, only go and kill a Hussian for meself! Why
can’t a man go and make it all right with the girl herself, and not to
be having all this ould botheration...?”
“Musha!” says Moll, “there’s a great deal to be looked into, besides
the girl!”
So then she went on to talk of Kitty, and they spoke about that over
and over and up and down; and at long last the spokesman agreed to
bring Heffernan across to Cusack’s the very next Sunday; and he sent
word by Moll.
That all came about; and very pleasant they were, all round. Heffernan
and a few more; tea they had and hot cake and punch afterwards.
“I thought to have the girl herself here,” said Cusack, “but she’s not
willing to leave the mother, that’s ‘donny’ this len’th of time; and
besides she’s a bit timersome in herself....”
“She’s none the worse of that!” says the spokesman; “and anyway, won’t
it be time enough, when we have all settled ... we’ll see her then....”
To make a long story short, they agreed about the whole thing, that
very evening; Cusack praising up the Dempseys’ farm, sure, and all the
fine grass it was able to grow; and the spokesman not one bit behind in
making much of the Furry Farm. Mickey himself said nothing, only sat
there smoking and looking into the fire.
And there’s the sort they were laying out for little Kitty Dempsey! and
he without a word to throw to a dog! But they never minded him; only
settled everything, even to having the wedding in a week from then.
Heffernan and the boy went off home, and Cusack went to his bed, very
satisfied with the work he was after putting over him.
Away with him the very next day to Dempsey’s to tell Kitty. He found
her very lonesome and fretted.
“I miss me poor mother, every hand’s turn,” she said; “now that she’s
laid by in her bed. And I dunno at all how I’ll get to mind her, the
way she should be attended to. Och, but it’s lonesome the place is,
without her voice, even to be faulting me! And the doctor’s bottles to
be paid for...!”
So the uncle begins then to advise Kitty about this thing and that,
and how it was a thing impossible for her to be thinking of going on
the way she was; she could never manage to do all. And then he worked
it round that she ought to get married. And in the end he spoke of the
fine match he was after making up for her.
“What! It’s not ould Mickey Heffernan!” said Kitty. “I never seen the
man, but I remember to hear me father, the heavens be his bed! speak of
him as a settled man, since I was the height of a bee’s knee! An old
fellah ...” and then Kitty took to go cry the father, that had always
been so good to her.
“Hut, what at all!” said Cusack; and then he began to reason cases with
Kitty over the marriage, reminding her that the mother was depending
out of her then; and what a good thing it would be for them both, for
Kitty to get Heffernan that was able and willing to pay up the rent
that was due on the Dempseys’ farm; and how would Kitty like for them
to be thrown out on the roadside, instead of being left in the old home
in comfort, and having some one sensible to do all for them?
Poor little Kitty! she cried down tears like the rain. For that was the
first that ever she heard of there being rent owing. It was the mother
that had managed badly to let that happen; she couldn’t help it, maybe;
and had never told Kitty a word about it.
Kitty said now, would the uncle wait a bit, till she could think it
over? But Cusack saw no sense in that; he being an experiented man
in business and money and all to that. He knew there might only be
unpleasantness, if there was any delay. And maybe Heffernan might
change his mind about paying up, and then wouldn’t he only have had his
trouble for nothing, and Kitty not settled, and where would the rent
come from? Cusack hadn’t it, nor wouldn’t know where to look for it.
So he just told Kitty that the gale-day was coming round very shortly,
and what was she going to do, to make up the rent? And that cowed her,
the crature! and she was always biddable. Sure she got the fashion of
it, from the time she was able to walk. So she gave in to what Big
Cusack said.
In due course, the day for the wedding came round. There was a great
gathering of the neighbours and friends at Dempsey’s, and everything
done in the greatest of style, four bridesmaids for Kitty no less.
Cusack wanted to do the thing right, when he went about it, and he took
on the ordering of it all.
Up bowls Heffernan’s side-car, and himself and his friends; and he
with a sprig of spearmint in his coat for a buttonhole-bit; feeling as
fresh in himself as a rolled ass. But he was as white as the snow about
the head, and as lame as a duck, the poor man! And when they saw him,
spraddling up towards the house, “Sure, that can’t be him that’s going
to be marrit!” said one of the bridesmaids. Not one of them ever laid
eyes on Mickey before. He was never one for going about, as I said, and
in particular had given up the fashion of even going to a wake, or any
place of the kind, where the boys and girls consort together, for years
past.
“Is it a wife he wants, or a coffin?” says another girl; “bad scran to
him, what a thing he wants to go do, to get a girl to marry him!”
I needn’t say, Kitty wasn’t let hear these remarks. But of her own
accord, when Heffernan got up to the door, she makes one fly, out of
the kitchen, and into her own little room, and begins to cry. And the
bridesmaids went after her, and clapped the door to, and began flinging
up their hands, and crying “Och, wirra, wirra!” till you’d think it
was keening at a funeral they were, and not at a wedding, where there
should be nothing but rejoicement.
The noise they made vexed Cusack.
“What nonsense is this?” he said; “let me have no more of it! Go after
Kitty,” he said, “and tell her I order her to come out here, at once!
and not to be making a Paddy FitzSummons’s grandmother of herself. Let
alone of every one else!” he says.
“Och, give her her time!” said Heffernan. It was remembered to him
after, that the only word he said at that time was to try to pass
things off agreeably.
A comrade-girl of Kitty’s, that knew the ins and outs of the whole
affair, went up into the room after her.
“Come back into the kitchen, Kitty agra!” she said; “and give over that
work.... Put by that pickther of poor Dan ... that’s all done with ...
and where’s the sense in heating up old broth...?”
But Kitty did nothing, only stand there with her face to the wall in a
corner, and she crying; while outside in the kitchen, Cusack was raging
like a lion.
“She should be made to come out here!” he said; “I seen girls before
now purshood through a bog, and had to be tied on the car, to get them
to the chapel, the way they could be married.... Well, Moll Reilly, and
is that yourself?”
“It is, it is, then! and God save all here!” said Dark Moll, very
breathless and hurried. “Where’s Kitty? Not that I could see her!
but sure I thought she would be coming to bid me the _ceud mile
failte_!”[13]
Cusack began to whisper to Moll, to explain what was going on. But she
seemed not to care to hear him, and only anxious to get into where
Kitty was.
“Let me at her; I’ll go talk to her!” said Moll, “and you’ll see I’ll
soon make her l’ave that, before I have done with her!”
And so she did, too. But it wasn’t exactly the way Cusack thought.
“Take care! Mind yourself!” said he to Moll, seeing her making a drive
for the door of Kitty’s room, the same as if she had the sight of her
eyes. But Moll was so taken up with what she had on her mind, that for
once she forgot she was blind.
“You’re wanting without there!” said Moll to the bridesmaids; and when
they were gone, said she, very quiet and easy, “Who do you think I’m
after seeing ... I mean, after meeting up with ... there, a while ago?”
“I dunno,” said Kitty, giving a great sob.
“... and he looking into the well ... and talking of how he used to be
rising cans of water there with you ... and then carrying them as far
as the turf-clamp....”
“Not Dan!” said Kitty. And she turned first as white as paper and then
as red as roses.
“Faith, who else?” said Moll.
“Ora, what made he come now? and it too late!” And Kitty began to cry
again.
“Late? the sorra late!” said Moll.
“Why wouldn’t it be late, and the wedding all fixed up? ... let alone
the rent that’s owing....” Kitty was thinking that Dan had come home as
poor as he went.
“Och sure! ‘divil dance on the rint!’--there’s the very word Dan
said!” said Moll; “it’s churns and ass-loads of money he has with him,
that he’s after bringing out of America!”
That was only foolish talk of Moll’s. A few pounds was all Dan had been
able to gather up while he was away. But it was enough, for all that.
To start with, he had given Moll a half-sovereign out of his purse, to
let him have a word with Kitty. Ay, and had promised her as much more,
if he got her. And Moll had never owned that much before in her life.
Whereas, all old Heffernan would be good for would be an odd copper or
two, and maybe an apronful of potatoes, whatever time they would be
going to waste.
“Poor Dan, and he only landed home yesterday!” said Moll; “and the fine
figure of a man that he is!”
“Ora, what will I do, at all at all?” cried Kitty, with the tears
pouring down her face. They two were shut into Kitty’s room, while
outside the kitchen was full up of people, fidgeting about, waiting for
the bride to appear and passing the time by looking at every mortal
thing in the place.
The table was all laid out for the wedding dinner, the greatest you
could see. And when any of the Dempseys’ friends would pass remarks,
carelesslike, on the fine white table-cloth, or the china teacups,
or the silver forks and spoons; they well knowing that all had been
borrowed from Miss O’Farrell above at the Big House ... on the minute,
Heffernan’s spokesman would cry out: “We’ve bigger and betther at home,
in our place!”
But in Kitty’s room: “What will you do, is it?” Moll was saying: “well,
seeing the strong faction that Heffernan has with him, there would be
neither sense nor reason in Dan Grennan’s coming in for you among them
all, and he without one, only himself; barring that he could r’ise a
ruction, like Phaudrig Crohoore! But he never could; and as he can’t
come to you, you’ll have to go to him.”
“How so?” says Kitty; “they’re the full up of the kitchen, so that I
couldn’t pass them by; and as for the window, it’s that small I needn’t
try that way; so what am I to do, Moll?”
“Troth, it’s you has little wit! What’s to ail you, only to put on my
cloak, and the hankercher over your head, and draw it well down over
your eyes ... and who’s to know is it Dark Moll or Kitty Dempsey?... I
mean, Mrs. Dan Grennan, that is to be...!”
“And then ... what am I to do, after?” said Kitty, with a trembling in
her voice. But there was a kind of little smile in her eyes, too.
Moll explained the thing.
“You’ll meet Dan below, there at the well. Sure it’s you that
mightn’t be surprised to see him there, nor he to see you, faith! And
Heffernan’s car is at the corner below, just out of sight of this
house.”
“But ... but....”
“And why not? Isn’t that car nearly yours, this minute, and haven’t
you every right, so, to take the lend of it? And maybe you never
would have the chance again! Lepp up on it, yourself and Dan! and off
wid yiz to the chapel. Ould Father Brogan is laid up in his bed, God
assist him from it, I pray! and it’s the new curate, that doesn’t know
Jack from Paddy in this parish, that had to be sent by Father Brogan
this morning, to marry you and ... who will I say, eh, Kitty? Is it
ould Heffernan with his critch and his white beard you’ll take, or
Dan? You have your choice. And there’s another thing! I gave word to
a brides-boy and girl to be waiting below there on the road, and go
with you, to give an appearance to it all, and the way you’d not feel
lonesome ... and....”
“Are ye coming, Kitty?” said Cusack, with a roar like a bull, he was so
impatient.
“What’ll I do at all at all?” says Kitty to Moll, most pitiful.
Moll opened the door a little bit.
“She’ll be wid yous, in one instant minute of time,” she said to Cusack
in a whisper; “wait until I go to the well for a sup of water, to
beethe her timples.... It’s no way for a girl to be getting marrit,”
says Moll, “to have a pair of red eyes, and a swelled nose upon her;
and well you know that, Mr. Cusack!”
“There’s water here in the kitchen,” said Cusack. So there was, plenty.
“That’ll not do, it must be drawn fresh,” said Moll.
“I’ll send a boy for it; here, Patsy! you’ll be soupler than Moll!”
“Ora, will you be aisy! that would not answer at all!” said Moll. “I
must go for it wid meself and no one else by; there’s a char-rum to be
said over the well ... and let no one speak a word to Kitty while I’m
doing all that!”
“Well, well, whatever you say!” said Cusack. He knew Moll to be an
experiented woman and so she had her way.
Moll then as soon as she had the door shut again on Cusack and all
the people, was taking off the cloak and handkerchief and giving all
instructions over again to Kitty, when, “Look-at-here!” said Cusack;
“more misfortunes!”
And over he rushed to the hearth, like a redshank, to where the dinner
was being cooked. A great, sudden cloud of steam was rising up, and
threatening to destroy everything. The pig’s face and greens was after
boiling over into the fire, and all the women gathered round, puffing
and blowing, striving to keep down the ashes that was powdering over
the fine elegant goose they had roasting in front of the fire. The
men just stood round, their hands in their pockets and their mouths
gaping open, not able to do a hand’s turn, only all very much engaged
wondering what would become of the dinner....
As Moll said after, ’twas God that done it, that started the thing, so
that she perceived ’twas little they would be thinking of Kitty. “Here
now, here’s your chance, and take it, girl dear! Throw the cloak about
ye, and dart while you’re young!”
On the word, there stepped out into the kitchen (to all appearance)
Dark Moll, with her head down, and off she went at a dog’s trot to the
well. And not one even took notice that she never asked to bring a
can, or even a noggin with her, to get the water in. In fact, not one
of the wedding-party thought of meddling with Moll (as they thought),
they were so taken up with the danger the goose was running with the
ashes.
But when all that was done with, they waited, and they waited; at long
last, first one and then another slipped out to try could they see what
was delaying Moll at the well.
“Where must she be, the ould rap?” said Cusack, very short.
“Here’s her cloak, anyway!” said a girl, picking it up where Kitty had
let it fall....
“Sure, that’s not Moll’s cloak, girl dear!” said another, giving her a
look to say no more.
There was a good deal of the people beginning to have a suspicion that
something was up.
“Your car is gone, Mr. Heffernan,” said one, and then the spokesman
said, “So it is! beyant there it was heeled up....”
“Where’s Kitty? where’s Kitty?” shouts Cusack, dashing back to the
house, and on into her room.
Of course, it was empty. Moll had watched her opportunity and had
slipped out of the house with the crowd, and whatever any one else
might have thought, Cusack took no notice, till he ran out again, and
met up with her near the well. It wasn’t till then that he began to
suspect some villainy.
“Where’s me niece? where’s Kitty, I ask ye? This is some of your
tricks, ye ould faggot, ye!” says Cusack, very fierce.
“Och, the Lord save us!” says Moll, pretending to cry; “and that he
may forgive you, Mr. Cusack, for having the bad thought of a poor
dark woman! Is it me to go do the like! Sure yous all seen me, and I
going off for the water ... and it’s what I must have took a wakeness
and I coming back ... fell out of me standing, so I did; sure, isn’t
there me cloak upon the ground, where I had to let it down off o’ me
shoulders....”
What could Cusack say to that? And, indeed, no more questions were
asked then. For the weight of the people could make a guess about what
was going on. And when the spokesman called out, that they should
pursue after them, for who could tell what might be happening to
Heffernan’s side-car, and a lot of other boys, ready for a bit of fun,
began yoking up, there wasn’t a bridle to be found! Stuck into the
heart of the turf-clamp they were; got there that night late. But no
one ever knew who put them there.
There was nothing more to be done, then, except to gather back into
the house, and wait. And by degrees, it appeared as if some that were
there knew more than they cared to tell. Whether they did not, it vexed
Heffernan’s party, who began to look inclined for fight. Only for Dark
Moll, indeed, there might have been a bit of a row, but she kept going
about from one to another, talking, and saying how that there was no
use in crying over spilt milk, and if Kitty itself was gone, wasn’t
there as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it? So they all did
their best to make the thing pass over quietly. The dinner was nearly
ready, and wouldn’t it be a pity, they all thought, to have it wasted!
And Heffernan’s spokesman, when Big Cusack said they might as well wait
and take their share of whatever was going, agreed, and added:
“We might as well! Sure won’t we have to stay, anyway, till they’re
back with the car! Mickey would be hard-set to go any distance with
that leg of his!”
The boy was young, and had no intention of losing his chance of
whatever sport there might be, no matter who got Kitty.
Heffernan as usual said nothing. He was looking very down in the mouth.
But who could wonder at that, after the way things had gone against him?
Before any more was said, back rolled the car, and Mickey and the
spokesman had to make the best they could of seeing it, with Dan and
Kitty sitting upon it! It was fortunate that the new curate that had
just married them came with them, for of course every one would be
anxious to have no unpleasantness before him. But, besides, there was
a girl with them, Margaret Molally by name, that they had expected to
the wedding, but had been delayed; so that when the car overtook her,
as she was hurrying along to Dempsey’s, she was glad enough to take the
lift they offered her. And Dan got her up beside him, he driving, while
Kitty and the curate sat together; and so Dan had an opportunity of
explaining the thing to Marg Molally.
Between her and the young priest, everything went off quite smoothly.
He suspected nothing, and so it was all the easier to keep up
appearances before him. As for Marg, she just went about from one to
another, now attending to the old bedridden mother, and now helping
with the cooking, or passing a pleasant remark to some of the
strangers that were there. Heffernan himself showed up well. No one
could have acted better than he did that day. He showed no spleen, but
when they all had their dinners taken, and a glass or two was given
round, to set the thing going, Mickey was the first to take the floor
with the bride, game leg and all; while Dark Moll played up her best
with “Haste to the Wedding!” and “The Joys of Matrimony.”