Part 15 (2/2)
But next month, on the afternoon of Easter Day, Mrs. M'Bean had two visitors over from Ballyhoy: Annie Ca.s.sidy, elderly and rather grim, with her young friend Nelly Walsh.
”Nelly's bound to be havin' bad luck this year of her life,” Annie observed in the course of conversation, ”for not a new st.i.tch has she put on her to-day, and it Easter. That's an unlucky thing, accordin' to the sayin'.”
”Ne'er a bit am I afraid of me luck,” averred Nelly, cheerful and threadbare, not to say ragged. But Mrs. M'Bean was p.r.i.c.ked by a sudden thought up the ladder to the little attic aloft, whence she creaked down again, bringing with her the great white hat. ”There, Nelly,” she said, ”just clap that on your head, and then n.o.body can pa.s.s the remark that you didn't get the wear of somethin' new, any way.”
Nelly took the hat, which struck her nearly dumb with admiration, but as she tried to catch a glimpse of it in the shred of looking-gla.s.s on the wall, her delighted expression waxed so eloquent that Mrs. M'Bean was impelled to say: ”You're to keep it, girl alive, if you've e'er a fancy for it. Sure it's fitter for you than the likes of me, that 'ud look a quare old scarecrow if I offered to go about in such a thing.” She had not at first intended this generosity, her worldly goods being so few that she could not lightly part with even a very unpromising possession.
Nelly, on her side, could hardly believe in her high fortune, when, after some polite demur, she found herself carrying off the splendid hat. To wear it on an ordinary walk would have seemed profane, so she held it under her old shawl all the way home to her cabin on the sh.o.r.e at the foot of the Black Banks, a good step beyond Ballyhoy. But when she reached the door, she could not forbear the pleasure of making her entrance in the glory of her new adornment. Her reception was altogether disappointing. For her mother's and grandmother's voices rose up shrill and shriller, demanding what at all hijjis gazabo she'd got on her.
Billy, her eldest brother, said: ”Musha, she's put a pair of blinkers on her like an ould horse;” and Larry, his junior, remarked with terse candour, ”Och, the fright.” More mortifying still, Joe Tierney, her sweetheart, who had called to conclude arrangements about the morrow's holiday, said in a disgusted tone: ”Tare and ages! I hope to goodness, Nelly, you're not intindin' to make that show of yourself at the circus to-morra. Bedad, I niver seen such a conthrivance; you might as well be walkin' alongside some sort of deminted musharoon.” This rather aptly described the effect of the huge white brim upon Nelly, who was small and short of stature; but it hurt her feelings badly.
The only upholder of the hat was Annie Ca.s.sidy, who is fond of controverting the opinions of other people, and who despises men. She said: ”Don't be lettin' them put you out of consait with it, Nelly; it suits you lovely. Sure if anyone doesn't think your app'arance is good enough for them, you needn't throuble them wid your company. Circuses, to my mind, is thrash--to be watchin' folks figurandyin' on a pack of ould horses' backs. There's a lot of us goin' over to-morra to Rathbeg, where they've merry-go-rounds you can ride in yourself, and all manner, if you'd just step down to the Junction station and come along wid us on the early train.”
”'Deed then I might,” said Nelly; not that she had the least intention of doing any such thing, but because, being somewhat of a belle, she was unaccustomed to uncomplimentary criticisms and much affronted by them.
Furthermore, for the same reason, she escorted Annie home, and stayed so long talking, that Joe before she returned had to go off about his milking, which annoyed him a good deal.
However, he had quite forgotten his vexation next morning, as he hurried through his early tasks with a day's pleasuring before him. He worked at the Kellys', whose land is bounded north and south by the Junction lane and the sea; and as he walked about the fresh April fields he was in view of Howth, dark pansy-purple against the eastern amber, confronting the sweep of the Dublin mountains, outlined in wild hyacinth-coloured mist, across the dancing silver of the bay. The calves had been fed so expeditiously that Joe found he could spare time to stop at the starred bank under the hedge and pick a bunch of primroses, some of which Nelly's mother would proudly keep in a jam-pot on the window-stool, while Nelly herself might like to wear a few at the circus, brightening up her brown-striped shawl.
But when he was compressing a thick sheaf of the cool soft stalks in one hard hand, he chanced to look up, and saw what thrilled him with dismay.
Bobbing along over the jagged edge of the wall, a short way down the lane went a gleaming white object, which he at once recognised as Nelly's new hat. He ran aghast to look through the gate, and despite intercepting road-curves and obstructive hedges, the hat it unmistakably was, making for the Junction station. So Nelly, intending a serious quarrel, had thrown him over and joined the Rathbeg party. A pleasure, h.o.a.rded in antic.i.p.ation for many a month, shrivelled into dead leaves suddenly like fairy gold, as he perceived how certainly this must be the case.
His first angry impulse was a resort to Haskin's Public at Portbrendan, where he might spend his spoilt holiday taking drinks and making bets in the society of some cronies. What hindered him from immediately acting upon it was a compunctious forecast of the concern which would prevail in his family, if he absented himself contrary to expectation. ”There's me mother's never aisy,” he reflected, ”unless she's persuadin' herself some of us are kilt on her.” This made him resolve to postpone Portbrendan till after breakfast, and he turned lothfully homewards. As he pa.s.sed along the Kellys' yard-wall, he relieved his feelings by tossing his nosegay over it at the place where he heard the grunting of their pigs, who on that occasion fared almost as delicately as Marvel's rose-lined fawn.
It was early still when he reached his cabin, one in the Walshes' row; and he sat down listlessly on a bank, to wait for nothing in particular.
Presently Mrs. Walsh, senior, came by with a twinkling can of water.
”Och, there you are, Joe,” she said: ”Nelly's been lookin' out for you this good while.”
”Whethen it's quare lookin' out she had,” said Joe, ”and she took off wid herself to ould Annie Ca.s.sidy--bad manners to her for her interfarin'.”
”What's the lad talkin' about at all?” said Mrs. Walsh, standing amazed; ”Nelly's widin there this instiant of time, readyin' herself up.”
”Maybe you'll tell me,” said Joe, ”that I didn't see her streelin' down the Junction lane afore I was lavin' Kellys'.”
”And maybe _you_'ll tell _me_,” said Nelly's grandmother, ”that she wasn't just now callin' to me they were wantin' wather. It's a fine bawl she'd ha' had to let out of her, if I was to be hearin' her, and she up beyond Kellys'.”
”There she was anyway,” Joe said, doggedly. ”Wouldn't I know that dad fetched-lookin' ould new caubeen she's stuck on her a mile o' ground?”
”You great gomeral,” said Mrs. Walsh. ”If that's all you might aisy enough ha' seen the big hat goin' the road--but have you the notion it's growin' on Nelly's head? Why, you omadhawn, you hadn't quit ten minyits last night, and Nelly was just after gettin' back, when who should come by but poor Mad Bell. Och now the raggedy objick the crathur was, wid nothin' over her misfort'nit head but an ould wisp as full of houles as a fis.h.i.+n'-net. So little Larry sez, jokin' like, 'Look here, Nelly,'
sez he, 'you'd a right to be lettin' Mad Bell have a loan of your grand nappy hat to keep the sun out of her eyes.' But belike Nelly'd took a turn agin the thing wid the way they'd all been makin' fun of it; for sez she, 'Will you have it, Bell?' sez she, houldin' it out to her. And if she did, Mad Bell grabbed it in her two hands--it's not often she'll have a word for anybody--and no more talk about it, but c.o.c.ked it on, and tied it firm under her chin wid the sthramers, as tasty as you plase. Musha good gracious, to see the len'th she drew the bow out on aich side of her bit of a yeller face, and the nod she gave her ould head when she'd got it done. So that's what's gone wid the hat. Goodness guide us, if she wasn't the poor crazy-witted body she is, 'twould be a sin to let her go makin' such a show of herself; but sure no one 'ud think to mind anythin' the likes of the crathur might have on her, the saints may pity her. Ay, bedad, them kind of quare consthructions do be fit for nothin' unless Quality and mad people,” old Mrs. Walsh continued, without malice, soliloquising, as Joe had caught up the can, and was hurrying it with prodigal splashes towards his sweetheart's door.
The circus, with its flaring lights and whirl of tinselled prancing marvels, was so rapturous an experience to Nelly that she had not a regret for her discarded hat, which at this time was moving on beneath a soft dappled sky, between greening hedges, westward along quiet roads and lanes. It found shelter for the night under the ley of a tall hayrick near Santry, thus ending the first stage of Mad Bell's tramp home to the wide brown bogland of Lisconnel.
CHAPTER XII
A FLITTING
Among the latest of the strangers that have visited Lisconnel were some who came at a time when the neighbours stood rather in need of distraction. For the summer following Mrs. Kilfoyle's death was, between one thing and another, a drearyish season with us. That little old woman had left a great gap; and then there were many long spells of gloomy bad weather, which seemed to beat people's troubles down upon them as the damp drove the turf-reck back through their smoke-holes into the dark rooms, where they could scarcely see how dense the blue haze was growing. Stacey Doyne's marriage also had removed something young and pleasant, and at times, when the thatch dripped without and within, neighbours were apt to talk about her in tones of commiseration, and say, ”Sure, her poor mother's lost entirely.” So that towards autumn the diversion of some new residents' arrival happened opportunely enough. It was made possible by the fact that Big Anne had given up her holding and entered into partners.h.i.+p with the widow M'Gurk, thus leaving her late abode empty for another tenant, who appeared much sooner than any one might have antic.i.p.ated from the aspect of the cabin.
<script>