Secrets of Our Hearts. Sheelagh Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ little un – we’ll have a story before bed!’ Opening the tome, he set upon imbuing them with one of its moral tales in an effort to drown out their grandmother’s voice.

      ‘I will! If they’re not out in five minutes I’ll go in and drag them out!’

      However, the threat was not to be carried out.

      A couple of hours later, around nine, when the youngsters were safely upstairs, Sean and his partner in crime finally emerged. Immediately the Beasty women rushed out to hurl insults.

      ‘Well, I’m glad she has the grace to blush – Ah say, you do right blush!’ scathed Nora from across the street, amid a mass drawing-in of chins and glaring and huffing from her equally irate daughters.

      Struggling to pull his door shut against the wind, Sean did not even look at them as he took a protective hold of his companion’s arm.

      ‘That’s right, take her home – take her back to her sty, and good riddance!’ This from Harriet.

      ‘I like your hair, love!’ Dolly mocked loudly, then declared to her abettors, ‘Nobody has hair that colour – she must dye it!’

      ‘With a bucket of rusty water by the look of it!’ brayed Harriet. Even as she spoke the words were ripped from her mouth and dispersed on the gale along with a noisy collection of debris, yet a few of them hit their target.

      ‘The cheek of them!’ an indignant Emma told her companion, all windswept and troubled as they made their departure. ‘It’s my own natural chestnut.’

      ‘I know that. They’re just jealous, ignore them – and don’t take any notice of their threats neither; they’re all mouth,’ advised Sean. He put a firm arm around her and quickly steered her away from further insult. ‘They can just get used to it.’

      Alas, far from growing used to it, tireless in their determination, one or another of the Beasty women was there to mutter and to scowl on each future occasion that Sean’s lover came to visit. Even more humiliatingly, the neighbours had become aware of the rift. At his current arrival, there was a small audience to witness the antics of his reception committee. Worst of all, though, for an uncle who loved them, Niall’s children were being indoctrinated by this bitterness.

      ‘Don’t do that!’ Ellen slapped a hand that had come up to wave as she and her mother took their turn at observation, crammed into their doorway in an effort to shield themselves from providing entertainment for the neighbours, whilst at the same time maintaining their vigilance towards Sean and his fancy piece.

      ‘I wasn’t waving at the lady,’ protested a forlorn Juggy, rubbing her hand, her skinny body squeezed between mother and grandmother’s hips. ‘Only at Uncle Sean.’

      ‘You don’t wave to either of them!’ her mother bent to warn her in a manner and tone that could not be misinterpreted. ‘And she’s certainly no lady!’

      Though Sean translated the comment only too well as he closed the door upon it, his little niece asked innocently: ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Never mind!’ Ellen shoved her daughter back inside, she and her mother following. ‘You do as you’re told and don’t say a word nor make a gesture to either of them. He’s not your uncle any more.’

      The child’s father was to endorse this, both in word and deed. In a change of tactic, from then on whenever encountering his brother, Niall would simply walk past as if the other were invisible. Hence, his children were to act by example. It was all very sad for one who had doted upon them.

      Yet however some might like to pretend that Sean did not exist, others continued to watch and to criticise his every move. Which was how they were to discover that the hussy had finally stayed the night.

      This was the ultimate outrage. At the sight of Sean and Emma emerging together at eleven thirty that Sunday morning, Nora abandoned her sentry duty and charged like a rhinoceros from the house, running directly across the street and arriving at such a velocity that she almost bowled her son-in-law over in her attempt to slap his face. She would have struck Emma too had Sean not quickly recovered from his shock to grab her arm.

      ‘You’re disgusting, the pair of you!’ Nora was snarling at them by the time Niall rushed over to referee, and to try to hold her back as she strained to be at those who had demeaned her kin. Ellen, Dolly and Harriet had rushed to join in the hounding, forming a barrier around Sean and the woman so that they could not escape. ‘Besmirching my daughter’s memory with that guttersnipe – where did she sleep, that’s what I want to know!’

      Though deeply embarrassed by the attention this was drawing – everyone dressed for the performance in Sunday clothes – Niall wanted to know too.

      The mark of retribution glowing on his cheek, an angry Sean tried to disentangle himself, whilst at the same time trying to protect Emma from Harriet, the most dominant of his sisters-in-law, who kept aiming vicious prods. ‘We don’t have to put up with this!’

      But Niall caught his arm, ‘Yes you do! You owe Nora an explanation as to how you’ve got the gall to have another woman in your wife’s bed!’

      Cornered, Sean managed to wrench his arm free, then drew a frightened Emma closer to him, barking at his accusers, ‘If you’d have been talking to me you might have found out before this – might have been invited to our wedding!’

      Totally shocked, they stopped to gawp at him, lending him the chance to carve an exit from their oppressive circle, though once free he did not run but stood his ground and faced them.

      Nora was first to recover, her accusation shrill with disbelief. ‘You can’t be married. We’d have heard from Father Finnegan!’

      Ruffled of temper and clothing, Sean was still putting them to order as he explained, ‘We got married at Emma’s church.’

      ‘Where’s that then?’ grilled Niall.

      ‘St Oswald’s.’

      There was a consensus of derision over the Protestant venue. ‘Well, you’re not really married then!’ countered Nora.

      Sean remained firm. ‘The certificate says we are.’

      ‘If you think I’m letting you bring your floozie to live in my daughter’s house—’

      ‘Nora!’ A lock of black hair tumbling over his brow, Sean leaned towards her with an expression of determination. ‘I’m very sorry but Evelyn’s dead. She isn’t coming back. I loved her but I can’t keep the house as a shrine. I’ve got to get on with my life. So it isn’t Evelyn’s house any more, it’s Emma’s.’ Taking advantage of their stunned faces, he dashed his hair back into place, straightened his spine, then said, with more equanimity than he felt, ‘If you’d like me to introduce you …?’

      ‘No, we bloody wouldn’t!’ yelled Harriet who, at twenty-five, might be the youngest, but had inherited the lion’s share of her mother’s obnoxious character. Whilst there might be name-calling from Ellen and Dolly there was the definite threat of violence here, and Sean had no wish to hang around and sample it.

      In an act of finality, he turned his back on them all, muttering, ‘I knew it’d be a waste of time,’ as he and his wife escaped up the street, shoulders braced against a tirade of insults.

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