A Story of the First Irish Beauties
The Gunnings
It was the year of grace 1750, and old Mother Corrigan sat outside her
door in Slattern Alley, smoking her short black pipe with a relish; and't
was a good day with her, for she had told his fortune that morning for
Squire Tyrconnel, on his way to fight a duel in the Phcenix Park with
Lawyer Daly; and when it was finished, says she to him:--
"Let you count the buttons on his body-coat, your Honour, and fix the
third from the top in your eye. And when you stand up to him, say a prayer
and pink him with your swordeen in that very spot, and the Lord grant him
a bed in heaven, the old villain, for he'll never be asking one on earth
again."
And as she said, so it was, and old Daly turned up his toes and never
spoke more, when the Squire got him in the third button. And an hour
after, Squire Tyrconnel sent his purse with five golden guineas in it, and
a pound of the best rappee to be found in the Four Courts, and all for
Mother Corrigan, and she was a proud woman that day. Her house was stuffed
as full of money as an egg of meat; but no one would think it to look at
her; for she had it all hid away like an old fairy, so that no one would
give a thought to it.
She was sitting at her door at the top of Slattern Alley where it turns
into Britain Street, and she in the best of good tempers, when a lady came
by with two young daughters beside her--a tall woman, with a fine
blossoming colour in her face and an air like a peacock spreading his tail
and her eyes as clear as spring water. It would be hard to see a finer
woman of her age in a day's walk, and all the gentlemen going to and from
the Castle must turn to have another look at the three of them. Her dress
might be handsome at first sight; but, closer, you could see she had it
held up with pins and stitches, and a bit of good lace fell over it to
hide the wear in the front. Also, she drew her feet under her hoop, that
they might not be noticed, though they were as small as a young child's.
And so she minced along with steps like mice, for fear of showing the
burst in her shoe.
But for all that she held up her head like the deer in the Lord
Lieutenant's park, and her pride was enough for a queen, and too much for
a poor lady walking the Dublin streets and holding her skirt up out of the
mud.
But it was the two she had with her that any lady might be proud of. There
were never two such out of heaven; and sure it may be believed, for the
world has said it often enough since that day, and will say it to the end
of time. For the elder was a sweet rogue, with hair like red gold clean
out of the fire, and eyes like a blue June morning, and cheeks like May
flowers that a rose has kissed, and lips that better than a rose would
kneel to kiss one day; and her smile lit up the street, and she tripped
along as light as a spring breeze.
But the younger--sure the Lord was well pleased the day he made her face,
for't was perfection's self, Her hair was a dark brown veined with gold,
and her eyes like purple violets with the rain on them; and when she
closed her long lashes 'twas like a cloud over the stars; and her mouth,
and the soft smile, and the dimple that dipped when she laughed--a man
would stand all day to watch her and not think long. 'Tis a strange thing
that one girl will be like that, all beauty and shining sweetness, and
another, perhaps as good,--for better she could not be in her heart,--will
be a poor sorrowful little victim that a cat would not look at in the
dark!
And old Mother Corrigan saw them coming, and she took her pipe out from
between her teeth, and says she:--
"Halt here, my ladies, the three of you, and hear the fortune that's
waiting you--the way you'll be ready when it comes."
"Fortune!" says the lady, stopping, a girl in each hand; "'Tis the black
fortune and the sad fortune that befell me since the day the gold ring was
on my finger. And I don't want to hear any more, so I don't; for if I had
more to bear than I have this minute I wouldn't face the morn's morrow."
But Mother Corrigan rose up as nimbly as a woman to a dance, and she
looked the lady in the eyes as if she was as tall as herself, and, "Come
in," says she, "for though 'tis a poor place, the beauty of the three of
you will light it like candles, and 'tis here your luck begins."
So they went in, and the lady said she had not so much as a silver bit to
cross her hand with, and indeed would have pulled her daughters back; but
the old woman would not have it.
"Leave it so," says Mother Corrigan, "what matters an empty hand today
when you'll fill the two hands of me with gold when the luck comes that's
coming? Give me your word, my lady, and I'll take it for as good as five
guineas."
So she gave her word to fill Mother Corrigan's hand with golden guineas;
and the two young girls were standing by, their cheeks like burning roses
for fear and hope, as the old witch caught the lady's hand, and gabbled
something that was not a prayer, and the words came from her like a person
talking in their sleep.
"High blood and poverty. Sure, your father had a crown on his head and no
gold to gild it with."
But the lady pulled her hand away angrily.
"Then you know who I am. What's the good of play-acting? I guessed this
would be the way of it!"
"I don't know and I don't care," says the old woman with a grin. "I'm
telling you what I see, and till this minute I never laid eye on you or
yours. Don't you be speaking again, for there's no sense in that; but
harken!"
So she told her her father was poor and proud, an Irish lord with a castle
in a bog and an old coach with the cloth hanging off it in flitters and
the plough-horses to draw it; and that he never gave her a penny since
she married, for he had it not to give. And she told her her husband was
no better, but running after the cards and dice all day, so that all the
world cried folly on her for taking up with him.
"But no matter!" says Mother Corrigan, "for you did a good deed for
yourself that day you stood up with him in the church."
"A good deed!" says the lady, very angry. "Don't you be a foolish old
woman, and you so near your end. For I got nothing out of it but care and
crying and pinching poverty and five children that I don't know how to put
the bread in their mouths; and this minute I'm as lonesome as a widow, for
my husband is off and away in the country, and here am I in Dublin; and if
I know how to get bit or sup for them it's as much as I do know."
But the old woman shook her head till her teeth rattled.
"Let you be easy and take what's coming. I see you sitting in a king's
house, and the walls all gilded gold, and the carpets like moss that your
foot would sink into, and riches and grandeur, and everyone bowing down to
the mother of the beauties."
"Well, if the half of it's true," says the lady, "the first news should
come to me is that I'm a widow; for 'tis impossible it should happen as
you say with a husband that hasn't one penny-piece to rattle on a
tombstone."
"You'll not be a widow for many a day, and 'tis your husband's name brings
the luck."
"You don't know what his name is. You couldn't If you'll tell me his name,
I'll engage to believe any mortal thing you tell me."
So the three looked at the old woman; but she took another look at the
hand as she might be reading a book, and:--
"Good-day to you, Mrs Gunning, and good-day to his Lordship's
daughter,--my Lord Mayo,--and good-day to the mother of the two beauties
that'll sweep the world."
And she clucked and chuckled to herself, highly diverted with their
astonishment. How did she know it? What that old woman did not know would
make but a short story. 'T was said she had informants over the whole
countryside, like a Minister of the Crown.
They stared, for they were new come to Dublin, running from their debts in
Roscommon and taking the chance to pick up husbands in the city, and there
was not one there who knew them.