His smile corroborated my assumption and did my morale no good. Then he courteously ushered us out.
“You know, Mom,” said Snow as we got into the Renault, “we don’t know that much more than we did when we got here.”
“He does,” said Simon with a laugh. “Maybe the letter tells it all.”
“Hmmmm. I’m not, I repeat,
not
opening that letter till we get back to the hotel.”
“And close to some Dutch courage,” said Snow, as I gave first Simon and then her a forbidding look.
When we got back to the hotel, there were five messages from Brian Kelley asking me to phone him as soon as possible. The last was timed three minutes before our return.
“Read the letter first, Mom,” said Snow, frowning at the message slips.
I turned to the girl at the desk. “If Mr. Kelley calls before I get a chance to catch my breath … please, I’m still not in?”
“Ah, not to worry, Mrs. Teasey.” Obviously she did not much care for Mr. Kelley.
The twins ensconced themselves on either side of me on the lounge settee so that we all read the letter together.
The letter, dated March 3, was penned in such a beautiful copperplate handwriting that I admired the look of it before I got down to the reading.
My dear Namesake,
I had so hoped to be able to meet you, for it was my intention to invite you and your children to visit me this summer. But dear Mr. Fleetwood is so cheerful, and careful to say nothing to the point, that I realize I will not have another reprieve.
Now I must let dry pen and ink speak lines I had so often rehearsed. We have much more in common, my dear Irene, than our names. Originally I willed you my little property for the sake of our mutual name. You were the only child in three generations and five lots named for me. I confess I was inordinately pleased that you resumed your maiden name after your divorce. Thank goodness such relief was permitted you.
“What does she mean by that?” asked Snow, who was reading faster than Simon and I.
“Hush and read!” said her brother.
“Hush, the pair of you!”
I am now more sure than ever of the fitness of making you heir to my queendom. I shall try to set as much in order as I can in the time left to me, but you are American and I am confident that your upbringing will help you solve what problems remain with good Yankee common sense.
You could do worse, dear Irene, than to make this queendom your home and to remain here in Ireland. You will not need to depend on any man. Carefully managed, this realm can give you independence wherever you wish to live, if not in Ireland.
If you are not of a mind to stay, however, do me three favours: do not sell my faithful horse to knackers but have him put down and buried in the back pasture. Ann Purdee will know how to go about that. Unlike the horse, you cannot shoot my Mercedes, which is a valuable old car. But do sell it to someone who cares for the car herself, not merely her monetary value. Gerry Hegarty, for instance.
My third request may seem to you to be spiteful. I am not at liberty to divulge the reasons behind this, since they affect someone else’s reputation, but do not give access up the lane to Shamus Kerrigan.
“Wow!” said Snow. “That’s laying it on the line.”
“Yeah, but not why,” said Simon.
What Aunt Irene hadn’t said, but what I felt, was a curious anger in her wording.
If you decide to stay and circumstances permit, please continue the present tenants of Swallow and Lark cottages for as long as need be. You will understand very quickly and, if you are the girl I take you to be, agree. George Boardman, however, is quite willing, and able, to give £3,000 for Finch or Thrush cottages, whichever comes vacant first. Michael Noonan can help you secure them, but I have had to let the proceedings drop to keep death duties down.
I know that you will meet discord among the relatives—yours too, though mercifully removed by distance and marriage— for few will be pleased with the disposition of my property. There were several of the youngest generation who deserve something of me for their kindness and friendship, but for me to single them out would be unkind. When the swearing ceases and they have turned to other trivia, you may care to ease circumstances. By that time, you’ll know who I mean.
You are, my dear Irene, the only logical successor to my queendom. God bless and keep you.
Your affectionate aunt,
Irene.
“Long live Queen Irene the Second,” said Snow, but her tone was by no means facetious.
“She didn’t want that bulldozer up the lane.”
“Yeah, but I wonder why,” said Snow darkly. “As if we’d put down that lovely Horseface! I couldn’t!” She glared dramatically at me.
“I like her,” said Simon, having deliberated on the matter. “I mean, a woman who can recognize that a car has a personality and isn’t just a mechanical object. I don’t like this bit about the relatives, though. Five lots? That sounds like too many, and we’ve got a horde as it is.”
“Cheer up, Simon, maybe they’ll stay away in their droves and dozenses. And besides, we’re not staying long.”
“Ah, Mom, you promised.” They both rounded me.
“
I
did no such thing.” Before I knew it, I was embroiled in a series of entreaties and promises and evasions (on my part) that lasted through checking out of the hotel and driving back to Hillside Lodge. But I held up the stream of argument long enough to tell the nice desk clerk to inform Mr. Kelley that I had checked out and would phone him tomorrow.
“He may want to know where he can reach you,” she said with diplomatic subtlety.
“Then tell him I’m staying at the home of a relative.”
I was halfway to Hillside Lodge before I realized that I’d told Shamus Kerrigan to meet me at the Montrose. Snow said that was no big problem—we’d get settled in and go back and meet Mr. Kerrigan in the lobby.
We found a small general store and picked up milk in plastic bottles (you had to give glass ones to get glass ones), eggs, butter, bread (a crescent loaf that smelled delectable and some good Irish brown bread), bacon, Coke, and instant coffee. We’d do a major shopping the next morning.
And so, bag and baggage, we took possession of a queendom.
Fortunately, the lights worked, and so did the telephone. (I found out much later that I owed those services to the motorcycle girl—penance?) We all made beds together from lavender-scented linens found in the closet with the hot-water tank. It was stone cold, and I couldn’t figure out where it got heated.
“Simon,” I said in despair, for I longed for a hot bath before braving Kerrigan, “go ask Mr. Thornton how to get hot water. He’s likely to know.”
“May I help you, Mrs. Teasey?” asked a soft voice from the back door.
In America one hears that the typical Irish colleen is a reasonably buxom, apple-cheeked miss, constantly smiling, so this slim, tiny, solemn girl with the delicate features and coloring of an equally typical Dresden shepherdess was a surprise. In fact, nothing about Ann Purdee was ever what it seemed.
“If you know how to get the water hot, yes,” I told her.
She smiled in a brief, polite way and stepped quickly past us into the dining room, where she knelt by the fireplace.
“This stove will heat the boiler,” she said, lighting a match from the package on the top of the enclosed fireplace and deftly inserting it. Flames licked around white cubes. “If you open the door in a few moments, so, once the firelighters have taken, the draft will start a nice blaze. You’ll have hot water in an hour. If you aren’t going to use too much, you must bank the fire with slack.” She saw the uncomprehending look on our faces. “To the left of the kitchen door is the coal bunker. The small pebbly stuff is slack, and you use it for slowing a fire down.” She plunged the shovel into the coal bucket and showed us the fine stuff. “Would you be wanting the beds made and all?” she asked, wiping her hands carefully on her apron.
I expect the twins had checked those hands first off, but I was appalled at how bone-thin they were, red and cracked from hard work and cold water. A thin gold band on the third finger rolled loosely up and down between the knuckles.
“That much we figured out,” Snow said with a little giggle, and there was an answering gleam in Ann Purdee’s lovely blue eyes.
“We’ve old-fashioned ways of doing things here, don’t you know? No bother once you’ve the way of it, but strange-like at first. Kieron T’ornton said you’d been by this morning.” What she was hoping to hear was as plain as day to me. “We’ll be staying on a while, Mrs. Purdee,” and I was surprised when she flushed. “I want to take my time before I decide what to do.”
“I want to learn how to ride Horseface,” said Snow, bubbling into the sudden, rather awkward silence. “He isn’t too old, is he?”
Some of the stiff stillness went out of Mrs. Purdee’s body and she looked at Snow. “I can teach you for sure, he’s not that old. I used to exercise Horseface,” she told me, “when Miss Teasey couldn’t. I’ve been taking care of him till you came. Not that there’s much taking care like, with him on grass now. He’s a grand old lad, you know.”
Abruptly she reached into the pocket of her housecoat.
“I have the rent for you, Mrs. Teasey. I was going to send it on to Mr. Noonan again, but as
you’re
here …” and she put a pound note and a column of coins on the dining-room table.
“Oh, thank you.” I was somehow embarrassed, never having been a landlady before. “Do you need a receipt or anything?”
Ann Purdee was watching me with a very disconcerting keenness. She swallowed now before she answered.
“No.” She gulped. “There’s no lease, you see.”
“Is one needed? I mean, if my great-aunt rented to you … and I don’t know anything about horse keeping, and …” The relief in her eyes was so intense that I became almost as upset as she’d been. “Besides, Aunt Irene specifically said that you should stay on.”
“That’s what worries me, Mrs. Teasey. You shouldn’t feel yourself bound by what herself said.”
“And why not? My aunt seems to have had good reasons for most of the things she did. I don’t know the setup here, and I’m not about to make arbitrary changes.”
From Ann Purdee’s expression, I gathered that reassurance didn’t reassure.
“I can’t stop long now, for the bahbee’s waking any time now. May I come back tomorrow? For there’re some things I’m to tell yourself alone. But sure, you’ve only to step down to the cottage if you need to know anything like, where things are and all.”
When she’d slipped out, I looked down at the money. ‘Two pounds was roughly five dollars, and that didn’t seem like a Lot of money for a cottage that’d sell for three thousand pounds cash, but I knew that two pounds was a great deal of money to Ann Purdee.
I didn’t have time to think about that now. It was almost seven o’clock. I sent the children scurrying to change into something elegant, and I slipped into what Snow considered the most acceptable of my new clothes. “You gotta be a Merry Widow, Ma!” (Construct the Image?)
We arrived at the Montrose at 7:20, parking the Renault. The receptionist told me that Mr. Kelley had indeed phoned back, and had been rather upset about my sudden departure. He’d wanted to know which relative had picked us up and what she had looked like.
“Ahha,” said Snow with a chortle, “a ‘she’ he suspects.” She made another of those incredible noises acquired from watching too many late horror shows.
The receptionist tried not to giggle.
“I’m sorry if he was unpleasant,” I told the girl.
She shrugged. “Not to worry, Mrs. Teasey. I’m used to his sort.”
Simon saw the blue Jag before I did, and dug me in the ribs warningly.
“Honey, you’ll break my ribs doing that one day,” I told him, rather more irritably than the situation warranted. “You’re so strong …” I was scared stiff about meeting Shamus-Shay Kerrigan. Unless I have the lines, I can’t act the part. And I’m never at ease with ruthless men. When I realized that Kerrigan must have a lot of money tied up in acres that he couldn’t reach, I could see myself being ruthlessed. Probably not in front of my children … I was very glad to have their supporting presence.
Kerrigan was not. In fact, he was dumfounded, a condition he undoubtedly seldom found himself in. He covered quickly, I’ll give him credit, and professed to be delighted, saying all kinds of flattering things about my youth with two such adult children, and yes of course, he realized that I couldn’t very well leave them alone on their second night in Ireland, but if he’d known he’d’ve brought his young nephew as company. So I was doubly glad that I hadn’t told him.
He seated Snow in the Jag with the same courtesy he accorded me—a ploy which went down well with her—and chatted amiably with Simon about the performance level of the Jaguar as opposed to a Mercedes 220, which my son had previously considered his favorite foreign car.
“We’re dining at the Lamb Doyle’s,” Shamus Kerrigan said as we wound past slower traffic. “Superb view of Dublin in the evening. You haven’t been in Ireland before, have you, Mrs. Teasey?”
I told him no, and then we bandied the usual “Good flight? No customs problems?” et cetera back and forth until we turned on to a less settled road and began to climb up the hill, which he identified as Ticknock, the site of a mysterious murder in the twenties. Then we were at the restaurant, which did have a commanding view of the city. And of all the developments sprouting up in the near valley: row after row after appalling row with postage-stamp sized space between them.
I began to see why someone would offer £3,000 for one of my aunt’s—no, my—cottages. Shamus Kerrigan’s bulldozer simply wasn’t going to rape the land around me if I could stop it.
Lamb Doyle’s was not, thank goodness, modern Americana. We went upstairs to the cocktail bar and settled down to admire the panorama and have a pre-dinner drink. The handsome headwaiter came around with leatherbound menus, and Snow assumed her blasé act. I could see that Simon wanted to kick her too, but I managed to catch her eye before her brother’s critical expression irritated her. She got my message loud and clear, and subsided.