The Made Marriage (11 page)

She had the feeling that Owen was taking a malicious delight in her reluctance as
s
he followed him out to the shed. ‘So Aunt Florrie has already established herself!’ he remarked. ‘Somehow, Kate, I’d have thought you were better able to stand up for yourself!’

It was, she concluded, a jibe at the reservations she held in regard to himself.

He grinned as he wheeled out the high old-fashioned bicycle with its rusted spokes. It was only too easy to picture Florrie Lawlor perched majestically on the high saddle, her scarfs waving sedately in the breeze as she pedalled to the village bent on assimilating the current gossip. Arrived there she would, no doubt, impose her views on the more timorous of its inhabitants.

‘I do hope your
amour propre
is not outraged by this wreck,’ Owen remarked as he pumped up the wheels.

It was a deliberate attempt to provoke her, Kate concluded. ‘I’ve obviously very little
amour propre
or I’d hardly have landed myself in this position in the first place,’ she said coldly.

His smile widened and, in spite of her annoyance, Kate noticed how white and even his teeth were against the brown of his tanned
c
heeks.

‘Most girls would have taken an extremely dim view of pedalling to Ballyfeeny in search of a down pillow,’ he remarked, ‘but then you’re not like most girls, are you?’

He was taunting her, hoping for a reply that would place her in an awkward position, she realised, and she preserved a cold silence until the pumping operations were completed.

Then, conscious that his sardonic gaze was following her every movement, she wheeled the bicycle out of the yard. It was years since she had cycled, not in fact since she had been a child tearing around the small garden of her parents’ suburban home, and her heart thudded nervously as she wobbled down the short path that led to the road. How ignominious if she should fall in an untidy bundle amongst the mechanism, to be extricated by a grinning Owen, before she even reached the anonymity of the main road!

To her relief she managed to pedal out of his view without mishap and was soon bowling along the white limestone road feeling a rising sense of exhilaration as she realised she was in control of the ungainly monster. The tingling cool air from the distant Galy Mountains blew against her cheeks. Fields of dark rich earth and thick green pasture spread on the far side of hedges, white with a froth of hawthorn blossom that exuded a scent that was almost headily sweet. So delighted was she by her surroundings that it was some time before it dawned on her that she had been cycling along the road without once coming on a signpost and, except for a passing cart, had had no encounter with another human being. She would ask the very next person she happened to meet, she told herself a little anxiously. How dreadful if she should lose her way and the excursion end in a search for her! She could imagine Florrie’s tart remarks at being deprived of her pillow and Owen’s exasperation at what he would consider her addle
-
headedness.

She was relieved to see a float advance towards her pulled by a large shaggy horse and driven by a weatherbeaten gnome-like character in a shapeless felt hat, green with age. The small twinkling eyes of the gnome surveyed her with interest when at last they drew level. He drew up his horse which began to crop the thick grass growing by
t
he roadside. ‘You’ll be the girl that’s come to stay at Laragh!’ he stated.

A little taken aback by his prescience, Kate didn’t reply.

‘I knew it as soon as I seen you,’ he remarked with satisfaction. ‘They was saying in the village that you were medium low-set and that your hair was a bit foxy.’

Cautiously Kate reviewed this statement; ‘medium low-set’ didn’t sound complimentary,
s
he concluded; nor did the description of her hair. However, she had become accustomed to Irish exaggeration and made a mental note to discover later the exact nuances of this extraordinary statement. ‘I’m staying at Laragh,’ she agreed cautiously.

A knowing smile crossed the leathery face and Kate wondered just how much of her predicament was known in the countryside and what conclusions had been drawn from it.

‘I’m on my way to Ballyfeeny House,’ she said hastily, to forestall further personal remarks. ‘Could you tell me how far it is from here
?
’

He nodded wisely.
‘
You’ve a fair share to go yet: about a mile to the crossroads; then you turn left until you come to the mills, then right again. You can’t miss the big house: there’s two lions or such-like animals on the pillars afore the gate lodge.’ He paused, eyeing her speculatively, and appeared to be on the point of questioning her further, but Kate hastily mounted her bicycle and with a word of thanks rode off.

She found that the gnome’s estimation of a mile was very different from her own, but at last she reached the lodge, nodded to a smiling woman who stood in a small overgrown garden with a child in her arms, and found herself pedalling wearily along the long avenue.

When eventually the house came into view she was startled by its size and magnificence. No wonder Doretta found it hard to believe that the Fitzpatricks were not wealthy while they lived in this enormous Georgian mansion set in rolling parkland dotted with ancient sycamores, oaks and chestnuts!

It was only as she drew nearer that she discerned the unmistakable shabbiness that marred the first opulent view. The pillars on either side of the narrow door were flaking with neglect and in the stained glass lunette that surmounted the doorway there were several pieces of missing glass. Weeds grew high where so obviously a velvet lawn should have extended to the riverside. She leaned her bicycle against an overgrown shrub feeling that her method of arrival had been rather incongruous. To arrive in style at such a house one should bowl up the avenue in a phaeton drawn by a perfectly matched pair of carriage horses with silver-mounted harness.

The windows stared blankly at her as she approached the door, and remembering Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s anything but friendly attitude towards her she began to regret falling in so readily with Florrie Lawlor’s wishes. What would be her reception by the haughty mistress of Ballyfeeny House? she wondered uneasily as she pulled the old-fashioned brass bell. The door was slightly open, she noticed, but considering the circumstances of her last meeting with Mrs. Fitz
p
a
trick she felt that a formal approach would be expected.

However, as she waited, listening for the slow purposeful approach of a servant, the silence was broken by cries of anger and the unmistakable sound of splintering furniture and crashing china. Galvanised into action, Kate dashed into the hall and to her amazement found two small boys apparently locked in a death struggle, pummelling and pushing each other with alarming ferocity. As they rolled about the floor, they crashed into a fragile Sheraton table, dashing to the floor a blue and white Chinese vase. Already signs of their depredations were strewn about the hall and a crystal vase with its contents of red and white tulips lay in a soggy mess on the worn Axminster carpet. So violent were their movements that Kate was only vaguely aware that they were of the same size and that their faces were very white and their hair soot-black. These would be the twins, she concluded, as she leaped forward and, catching them by the back of their torn shorts, held them apart like a pair of snarling tiger kittens.

‘
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!’ she said angrily, as she surveyed the shattered remains of what had been obviously beautiful and valuable antiques. All diffidence had suddenly left her and she gave each warrior a thorough shaking before releasing them.

The unexpectedness of her arrival and her strong-arm way of dealing with them seemed to act on them like a deluge of icy water. Immediately their differences were forgotten in amazed contemplation of this strange little fury with the thick honey-coloured hair.

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,’ Kate repeated furiously as she bent down and picked up the pieces of a cut glass goblet. From her experience at The Trinket Box, she knew that it was a piece of rare blue Waterford glass.

As the two children surveyed her in stunned silence Kate turned her attention to them, realising with a sense of shock that they were completely identical from the coal-black locks of hair that lay on their broad foreheads to the torn shirts and untied shoe-laces on their scuffed shoes. ‘You must be the twins! I’ve heard about you,’ she said significantly.

She noticed with misgivings the pleased expression that crept into their sloe-black eyes, and immediately regretted her words; evidently the twins relished their notorious reputation and were flattered by her immediate recognition.

‘We’re not quite identical, you know,’ one of them piped up defensively. ‘Sean has a freckle.’

Kate surveyed them closely
:
it was true, one of the little demons had a faint brown freckle on his left cheek.

‘I’m Eamonn,’ said the speaker, and favoured her with a wide grin, showing perfect white teeth and reminding her only too forcibly of his brother Nicky.

‘You must be Kate,’ Sean said with conviction. ‘And you must invite us to your wedding. Nicky has it all arranged, hasn’t he?’

Kate blinked at him in astonishment, her anger at their destructiveness forgotten at this extraordinary statement.

‘I love wedding cake,’ Sean continued happily. ‘When I get married I shan’t go away on a silly honeymoon; I’ll stay behind and eat up all the cake myself.’

‘Me too
!’
Eamonn agreed fervently.

Evidently, in spite of the similarity of their appearance, it was Sean who was the moving spirit of the duo.

‘You can’t leave us out,’ Sean urged, ‘especially after all the trouble Nicky has taken to get Owen married off. You must send us one of those little cards with silver writing inviting Masters Eamonn and Sean Fitzpatrick and afterwards send on a piece of cake in a little box. You won’t forget, will you? Not that I intend to sleep with it under my pillow,’ he added contemptuously.

‘Oh no, we’re not going to sleep with it under our pillows,’ Eamonn echoed with a giggle. ‘Are we, Sean?’

Sean didn’t deign to answer. His coal-black eyes were surveying Kate curiously. ‘You’re not a bit like the sort of girl we expected, you know.’

‘No?’ Kate waited with interest for him to elaborate.

He shook his head, tossing the lock of hair on his forehead. ‘Oh no! Nicky said you’d probably turn out to be a cold fish of an English girl, but you’re not, you know,’ he added with satisfaction.

It was time, Kate decided, that she made her position perfectly plain. ‘I’m certainly not going to marry your cousin,’ she said severely, ‘I’m simply staying on at Laragh to help out until Mrs. Murphy is well again. I suppose you know she has broken her arm,’ she added a little acidly, for it was perfectly obvious that there was very little that happened in the surrounding countryside that the twins were not aware of.

‘Oh yes, we know,’ Sean said solemnly, ‘and it was a terrible pity, for she makes the most terrific upside-down rhubarb cake.
C
an you make upside-down rhubarb cake?’ he asked with interest.

‘
No, I certainly can’t,’ Kate said firmly, ‘and now if you two have really made up your minds not to do any more damage, I’d like to fetch your Aunt Florrie’s down pillow. That’s what I came for in the first place. Do ask your mother if I may have it.’

To her exasperation this request sent the twins into convulsions of laughter.

‘Mother isn’t here: she has gone into Limerick,’ Sean said at last, ‘and Doretta’s in charge. Eamonn and I hate her. When Mother’s here she’s all smarmy and sweet, but when we’re here alone she’s always scolding us and saying rude things about us in Italian. She’s up in her room making a frock. I heard her tell Nicky she wouldn’t go out with him as she wants it finished before she goes to Blarney
with Owen.’ A thought struck him. ‘I do hope Cousin Owen isn’t silly enough to marry her: then she’d be a sort of relation, wouldn’t she, and she’d never go back to Italy again! You must marry him right away, for I’d simply hate Doretta as a relation. Wouldn’t you, Eamonn?’

‘Me too!’ his brother answered solemnly.

They looked at each other with the large sloe-black eyes that were so like their brother Nicky’s: they were hard to resist and Kate wondered if they had inherited them from their father, the gay boyo, who had squandered the Fitzpatrick fortunes.

‘You must go to Blarney too,’ Sean announced determinedly, ‘otherwise she might propose to him.’

Kate smiled, ‘But I haven’t been invited.’

Sean looked impatient at what he obviously considered an irrelevancy. ‘If she goes to Blarney and kisses the stone, then she’ll have the gift of eloquence and will marry him for sure, but don’t worry, Eamonn and I will think of something. Won’t we, Eamonn?’

‘Oh yes, for sure! Perhaps we could put a spell on her or cut up her frock when she finishes it, or something,’ Eamonn said hopefully.

Kate, who had heard enough about the twins to have a healthy respect for their abilities, was on the point of protesting when there was the sound of a creaking step and Kate turned to find Doretta standing on the staircase watching them in silence. How long had she been there? Kate wondered, listening to the twins’ uncomplimentary remarks concerning her.