A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett

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      When Brian had told Norah of the accident and of Joe’s part in it and went on to say that he had invited the man to dinner, she had looked at him as if she couldn’t believe her ears. She had been up to see Gloria, and she was distressed and worried, and now this other bombshell.

      ‘You have invited that man to dinner, here?’ she’d repeated.

      ‘Aye,’ said Brian. ‘I did.’

      ‘And why, pray, did you do that?’

      ‘Do what, my dear?’ Brian had asked mildly.

      ‘Oh, don’t be so obtuse, Brian,’ Norah asked. ‘Why ask a common workman to dinner?’

      ‘Didn’t I explain what he did, and that if he hadn’t been there—’

      ‘Of course you have explained,’ Norah snapped. ‘Though if you had acted as a proper father and refused to take Gloria to such an unsuitable place then she would have been in no danger whatsoever. But whatever he did I’m sure the man would hardly have expected to be asked to dine with us. Why didn’t you thank him sincerely, as I am prepared to do, offer him a sum of money and send him on his way? Find him a job if you must, but to ask him to dinner is madness. Surely you can see that he is bound to feel out of place and uncomfortable.’

      ‘It was done in the heat of the moment,’ Brian admitted. ‘However, he is here now and you must accept it, my dear.’

      ‘You do not have to explain manners to me,’ Norah hissed. ‘I know how to behave and conduct myself, and much better than you.’

      Despite her views, though, Norah was quite impressed when she saw Joe. He was a handsome and well set up young man, and had a way of carrying himself. Added to that, his brown eyes looked honest and steady and he was at least respectable.

      Norah Brannigan extended her hand to Joe and said, through pert, thin lips, ‘I believe my husband and I have much to thank you for, Mr Sullivan? He tells me you saved our daughter’s life today.’

      ‘I happened to be in the right place at the right time, ma’am, that was all,’ Joe said. ‘I was just glad to be of service.’

      ‘Gloria is much more comfortable now,’ Brian said. ‘We are awaiting the doctor and her maid, Tilly, is sitting with her.’

      ‘I trust she will make a full and speedy recovery,’ Joe said.

      ‘So do I,’ Norah agreed. And then she cast a venomous look in her husband’s direction. ‘Of course, the whole thing should never have happened in the first place.’

      ‘Now, Norah,’ Brian said in a placating tone, ‘we have been all through that.’ He turned to Joe. ‘Now if you give me the name and address of your sponsor, I will send him word where you are.’ Joe gave it to him and he wrote it on the pad he lifted from the desk, then pulled the bell rope by the side of the fireplace. ‘We will have dinner shortly after the doctor has been, but in the meantime would you like a drink?’ he asked Joe.

      Joe thought about what the men on the ship coming over had said about the Prohibition Law in America forbidding the sale or production of alcohol, but from the vast array of bottles in the cabinet, he could see no sign of it in the Brannigan household. This didn’t surprise him for, in his experience, most rich people seemed to be able to sidestep the law.

      ‘I don’t know what to ask for, sir,’ he said. ‘I understood that Prohibition would—’

      ‘I saw the way the wind was blowing before it became law,’ Brian said, ‘and was able to stockpile a fair bit in the cellars. Ridiculous notion to try and turn a whole nation like this one teetotal.’

      ‘I couldn’t see it working in Ireland, sir,’ said Joe with a smile.

      ‘I couldn’t see it even being proposed in Ireland,’ Brian said. ‘Doesn’t work, of course. It will be two years by the end of January next year and already the gangs that used virtually to run the underclass of the city that I spoke about in the taxi have sprung up again. They are now in control of nearly all the illegal liquor smuggled in. Mark my words, that law will cause more problems in society, not less. Still, that doesn’t answer my question. As this isn’t a dry house yet, what would you like to drink?’

      A pint of cold Guinness would have gone down a treat, but Joe couldn’t see anything remotely like that and Brian, seeing his dilemma and guessing how he was feeling, said, ‘Will you join me in a whiskey?’

      Joe sighed inwardly. Whiskey at least he knew, though he hadn’t drunk it often, so he said, ‘A whiskey, sir, would be very good.’

      A young maid dressed in a white apron over her black frock appeared then. ‘Ah Mary,’ Brian said, passing the paper into her hand, ‘give this to McManus. Tell him to go to this address and inform a Mr Patrick Lacey that his friend, Mr Joe Sullivan, is dining with us this evening.’

      Mary gave a little bob as she took the letter from Brian, and Joe realised how easy life was for a person rich enough to employ a bevy of servants.

      ‘Now,’ said Brian, passing a generous glass of whiskey to Joe, ‘Sit down, make yourself comfortable and tell me a bit about yourself.’

      Joe sat very gingerly on the gold suite, and told Brian of the small town of Buncrana in northern Donegal and the farm near to it where he had been born and reared. He went on to tell him of his young brother, Finn, who had enlisted in the Great War and was killed in 1916, and his elder brother, Tom, who now owned the farm after the death of his father, and his sister Nuala living in Birmingham, England. He didn’t speak of Nuala wanting to marry a Protestant man, or that when she wrote the news of this to her parents her father had had a heart attack and died with the letter still in his hand.

      Nor did he say that his mother, who had become almost unbearable to live with, had disowned Nuala because she blamed her for her father’s death, and he never mentioned Aggie, his eldest sister, either – another one his mother disowned – who had run away from home when he was just a boy, because these were personal family matters and not for sharing.

      ‘The place was not the same at all after Daddy died,’ Joe told Brian and Norah. ‘It was as if the heart had gone out of the place. And then I felt that life was passing me by and, well, I was breaking my back for a farm that would never be mine and so I decided to give America a try.’

      ‘And how did your brother take that news?’ Brian asked.

      ‘Oh, Tom understood,’ Joe said. ‘In fact he—’ But Joe got no further for at that moment the doorbell rang.

      Knowing that it was probably the doctor, Norah was crossing the room before the maid appeared at the door. ‘Have to leave you to your own devices, Mr Sullivan,’ Brian said.

      ‘Don’t worry, sir, really,’ Joe said. ‘I am anxious as you are to hear what the doctor has to say about your daughter.’

      ‘Help yourself to another drink and make yourself comfortable,’ Brian said as he left. ‘We will both be back directly.’

      Joe didn’t help himself to a drink, but sipped the one he had slowly as he again looked about the room in wonder. He thought of his brother on the farm and what he would say if he saw him now, sitting in such a room in such a house, as if he had a perfect СКАЧАТЬ