Marriage by request Read online

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE weather had turned more dull by the afternoon and as Cerys walked down the drive to the road she cast a wary eye at the rolling grey mass of cumulus doud that sat overhead. The brisk wind might move it on before it settled in to rain, taking it to the hills where the cooler air would break its journey, but she hoped it would stay fine for her walk. She was not too dismayed at the idea of getting wet, for she was young and healthy and usually resistant to colds, but it would be more comfortable in the dry. It was still pleasantly warm, despite the threat of rain and more encouraging to walkers than the previous rather sultry days had been. With the wind blowingthrough her thick black hair and tossing it about her face and neck she felt undeniably light-hearted, a feeling which even the recent upsetting talk with her uncle and Liam could not dim. The cottage where Doctor O'Rourke lived and practised appeared to be deserted when she passed it on her way to the gate and she did not look too closely in case he should be there and call to her. She avoided meeting him whenever she could, especially so since he had behaved so abominably two days ago, although she blamed her own reaction for her continued embarrass: ment almost as much as she blamed him. She had reached the tall stone pillars that guarded ^ the gateway and was just turning on to the road when ; she saw another girl coming towards her from the I direction of the village. A smile hovered on her lips in 81 readiness to greet the girl, but it never materialised, for as she drew nearer she could see the anxiety and fear on the young face. She seemed to increase her pace when she saw Cerys and she paused when she came near enough to speak, addressing her hesitantly as if she feared a rebuff. 'Is is the doctor busy?' she asked. Cerys shook her head regretfully. 'I'm afraid I don't really know,' she told her. 'I came past his cottage just now and I don't think there was anyone there at all. I could have been mistaken, of course,' she added hastily, 'but it did look deserted.' 'Oh, you've not been to see him, then? I'm sorry.' She had wide dark eyes and hair as dark as Cerys's own, but long and straight about her face. She would, Cerys thought, be a year or two younger than she was, and lacking in self-confidence, though she was pretty enough. 'Did you want him urgently?' Cerys asked, sympathising with the worried frown and the anxious look in the dark eyes. 'He may have been there you could try.' 'I must,' the girl said desperately. 'I don't know what I'll do else.' 'Someone's ill?' Cerys asked sympathetically. 'It's me grandfather, d'ya see, he's he's ' Tears gathered in the dark eyes and one hand covered her mouth for a second. 'Oh, dear Mother o' God,' she whispered, 'he's fallen an' hurt himself an' he looks bad. I can't lift him.' 'I'll come back with you,' Cerys told her impulsively. 'And if the doctor isn't there we'll have to get someone else.' 'But ' 'Let's go and see,' Cerys urged, turning round and taking the other girl's arm in an effort to comfort her. The cottage still looked deserted and their banging on the door brought no answer, nor was there any sign of the ancient car in the small outhouse where it was normally kept. 'Oh, what'll I do?' the girl asked anxiously. 'I'm sure Grandpa's hurt bad an' I've no notion o' nursin'.' 'Well, we'd better think quickly how best to get hold of Doctor O'Rourke,' Cerys told her, 'though heaven knows where he is. How did your grandfather get hurt? Is he unconscious?' 'He was when I left,' the girl admitted. 'I t'ink he'd a bang on his head when he fell. I heard a great bump in the woodhouse an' when I went out he was lyin' lyin' there, an' I couldn't rouse him.' 'You left him alone?' Cerys asked, appalled at the idea. Tears filled the dark eyes. T had ta,' she said, her protest plaintive. 'I couldn't rouse him an' I t'ought I t'ought he was dead at first.' 'I think we'd better get an ambulance, by the sound of it,' Cerys decreed firmly. 'We'll ring from the house, and don't worry too much ?' 'Sheila,' the girl supplied, 'Sheila Flaherty.' 'Sheila,' Cerys smiled encouragingly as they left the silent cottage. 'Well, don't worry too much, Sheila, we'll find someone who can help. You'd better go back to your grandfather and I'll see if I can get an ambulance or else Doctor O'Rourke. Try not to worry too much.' She extended a hand to take the other girl's in gentle sympathy. 'My name's Brady, Cerys Brady.' She thought there was a curious, wary look in the dark eyes as they looked at her, suddenly less friendly. 'I can get the doctor meself,' she informed Gerys 83 shortly, snatching away her hand. 'I don't need ya help at all. Miss Brady, thank ya all the same.' Before Cerys could recover from her surprise the other girl was running down the road away from her, the long black hair streaming out behind her in the wind, and Cerys noticed for the first time that her dress was light yellow, flicking out of sight behind the obscuring trees as she turned the corner of the road. She stared after her for several seconds, too stunned to move, then she shook her head despairingly, wondering just how badly hurt old Tom Flaherty was, for she had no doubt that the girl was the granddaughter of the man in the cottage across the river that Liam had spoken of. There was nothing she could do now, since the girl had so flatly refused to accept her help, though what her motive's were she had no idea. She could do no more than tell Doctor O'Rourke about the accident if she happened to see him; in the meantime she might as well continue with her interrupted walk, although she found it difficult to dismiss the worried and frightened face of Sheila Flaherty from her mind. The rain held off all the way to the village and the half mile proved longer than she had anticipated, unless it was because she was out of practice, and she thought ruefully of the walk back, uphill and probably in the rain. Killydudden was only one street, but there was a shop, she discovered as she walked along between the small, tidy cottages that opened on to the road. It was a small, overcrowded little shop that also served as a post office and Cerys stopped to look in the window at the variety of goods it displayed, marvelling at their diversity. There was almost everything imaginable offered for sale and all of it had that slightly dusty air of long 84 exposure. As she was about to turn away with a wry smile, a voice behind her made her start nervously. 'It'll be Miss Brady, will it not?' the voice enquired, rich with the local brogue, and Cerys turned with a smile ready. 'Yes,' she admitted, 'I'm Cerys Brady.' The woman who surveyed her from the step of the little shop was round-faced and rosy-cheeked, but her eyes had the shrewd, calculating look of a hard bargainer or a gossip, and Cerys took heed of it. 'I'm Binty Monahan,' she was informed, the shrewd eyes flicking upward for a moment to a board above the doorway which declared that the premises belonged to B. Monahan. 'I heard ya was stayin' with himself up at Croxley.' 'How do you do, Mrs. Monahan?' Handshakes were exchanged and Cerys saw the way her dress, and indeed everything she wore, was scrutinised and noted for future reference no doubt, and her smile wavered a little. Binty Monahan stood back from the doorway, an inviting smile on her face. 'Will ya step inside?' she suggested. 'Ya'll have walked down from Croxley, I suppose?' 'I have,' Cerys agreed, cautious about accepting the invitation, but uneasily reminded of Kevin O'Rourke's jibe about her playing the landed gentry. 'Then you'll be glad of a rest, I don't doubt,' Binty Monahan said, her intention obvious. 'I I'm quite all right, Mrs. Monahan, thank you,' Cerys told her. 'I'm not tired, it's barely half a mile from here, thank you all the same.' 'It's goin' to rain,' the woman told her, as if she had the power to decide when it should. 'The wind's droppin' an' that's a sure sign.' As if to lend support to 85 ler efforts, the first heavy spots plopped on to the dusty road and on to Cerys's head as she stood in the street. 'Oh dear,' she said, pulling a wry face, 'I'd better start back before it gets too bad.' Her new acquaintance, however, had persistence and she shook her head. 'It'll not be long,' she told her. 'It's nothin' but a summer shower. Come inside out of it. Miss Brady, an' wait 'til it finishes. There's no sense in gettin' wet when there's no need to.' 'Very well, thank you.' Cerys surrendered to the inevitable and stepped into the tiny, tightly packed shop to the smell of cheese and candles and a strange musty odour that she could not at first place, but which she eventually brought home to a sack of chicken meal propped up by the counter. "I'll make some tea,' her hostess offered. 'Sit down, why don't ya. Miss Brady, I'll not be a minute.' In fact it proved to be near ten minutes, during which time the woman chattered incessantly and the brew she eventually offered in a large cup was as black as night. 'Thank you very much, Mrs., Monahan.' She looked at the cup of liquid with horror but managed to conceal her feelings sufficiently to be polite. 'I know it's the proper time for tea in England, isn't it?' Mrs. Monahan asked with a smug smile. 'Four o'clock.' 'Yes yes, it is.' Cerys sipped the black brew cautiously and tried to suppress the shudder that went through her. 'Is the tea all right?' her hostess asked, and Cerys nodded. 'Ah, good! Monahan always says I make a real cup of tea. He's a grand man for his tea an' none the ' worse for it, I dare say. Doctor O'Rourke too,' she went on, 'he likes my tea too.' Mention of Doctor O'Rourke reminded Cerys once 86 more of the girl Sheila Flaherty, and she wondered if '. she had yet managed to find the doctor for her grandfather. 'That reminds me,' she said, 'have you seen . Doctor O'Rourke this afternoon, Mrs. Monahan? I wondered if he might be in the village somewhere.' 'He was earlier, over at the Kerrys',' Mrs. Monahan informed her with the air of assurance that told the practised minder of other people's business. 'He drove off just as you came in here.' Cerys could not think how she could have missed that decrepit old car if it had been parked in the road, but she supposed her mind had been occupied v/ith the ; wonders of Mrs. Monahan's shop window and she had not noticed it. 'Oh, that's a pity,' she said without : thinking of the consequences of her remark. 'I wanted to see him if I could.' 'Ya wanted to see the doctor?' The shrewd eyes weighed up all the possible reasons. 'Were ya sick maybe, Miss Brady, or was it just a social kinda thing like?' 'Someone was looking for him earlier,' Cerys supplied, being drawn despite herself, she realised. 'It's it was rather urgent, I think, and he couldn't be found.' 'Who would that be now?' Mrs. Monahan enquired, unashamedly curious. Cerys would as soon have not told her, but short of being rather unnecessarily secretive or outright rude there was nothing she could do but tell her about Sheila Flaherty's search for the doctor. 'It was Sheila Flaherty,' she told her hostess. 'Her grandfather needed help and she was trying to find Doctor O'Rourke for him. She looked very upset and frightened, poor girl.' 'The tinker!' There was withering scorn and a com;. plete lack of sympathy in the remark and Cerys blinked ; at its vehemence. : 'Mr. Tom Flaherty worked for my uncle until he I ^ retired,' Cerys informed her, with no doubt in her tone as to where her sympathies lay. ^ Ah sure Tom Flaherty's a good enough man, the woman allowed, 'but that fool of a son of his took up wid Aat tinker woman an' he was never the same again.' , , 'You mean the girl's mother?' Cerys asked, curious despite herself. . T mean her mother,' Binty Monahan agreed with a curled lip to tell what she thought of the liaison. 'She was a tinker, a raggle-taggle slut of a woman an' no better than she shoulda been. She died when that girl was born. God rest her soul.' The pious blessing on top of such spite struck Cerys as incongruous, but she made no comment on it. 'And her father?' . Mrs. Monahan shrugged uncaringly. 'Oh, he went oft an' I did hear he married a Protestant woman in Belfast a good riddance to him.' 'Poor girl,' Cerys said softly. 'She can't have had much of a life.' 'Ah, not so bad,' her hostess decreed. 'The Sisters at the convent took her for a while an' then old Tom had her there wid him an' she's had a good time there, I daresay. She'd have fared worse wid the tinkers, which is where she shoulda been, I'd say.' 'She's very fond of her grandfather,' Cerys said, feeling bound to defend the girl from sudi outright bigotry, 'and I expect he is of her, she seemed a very nice girl.' The woman's shrewd eyes looked at her suddenly as if for the first time she realised where her sympathies lay and she smiled an ingratiating smile in an effort to put herself on the right side. 'Maybe she is,' she allowed. 'Maybe she is.' 88 Tired of the woman's manner and her overpowering personality, she looked out of the small window at the weather and heaved an inward sigh of relief to see the sun already reappearing. 'I'd better be getting along, Mrs. Monahan. The rain's stopped and it's fine again. I'd better get back before it starts again.' She put down the big cup with as much of the black brew as she could politely leave and smiled at her hostess. 'Thank you for the tea, it was very good of you.' 'Ah, ya welcome anny time ya passin',' she was informed. 'I like a little chatter now an' then, it helps folk along, I always say.' She walked with Cerys to the door of the little shop and stood watching her along the road, and Cerys wondered how much gossip her brief visit had provided her with. She had been very careful, but with a woman like Binty Monahan, she thought, what had not been said would be invented, and she felt a bit uneasy as she walked along the road back to Croxley. Everywhere smelled fresh and looked better for the rain, even though it had been only a short shower, and the lush green of the grass looked even richer for being refreshed, so that Cerys sniffed the air appreciatively as she walked. It was good to get the musty smells of the little shop out of her nostrils. The slight uphill journey back from the village seemed less arduous than she had anticipated and she was about half-way when she heard a car approaching from behind her, recognising the noisy progress too late to prevent the turn she had already half made when the vehicle drew level with her and came to a halt. The dusty black with scratched chrome trimmings was all too familiar to her and she wondered which was best to do, to ignore him and walk on, head in air, or 89 to tell him that Sheila Flaherty needed his help. Conscience at last decided for her and she stood beside the ancient car trying not to meet the glint of devilment that watched her and guessed her predicament. Get in and I'll give you a lift -back,' he suggested before she could say anything. 'No, thank you!' Her tone conveyed her opinion of his offer unmistakably and she heard him chuckle. 'Aah, come on,' he coaxed, 'don't be stubborn.' 'You were needed earlier,' she told him, ignoring the persuasive voice. 'Sheila Flaherty came looking for you, her grandfather had had a fall and he sounded quite badly hurt, but we couldn't find you at your cottage.' 'He's concussed,' he told her, 'and he's in Traveree hospital now, so don't worry about it he'll be all right with the proper attention.' 'I was worried,' she confessed. 'The poor girl seemed half out of her mind with worry and I was going to help her it I could, but she ' He arched a brow at her sudden stop. 'Did she know who you were?' he asked. 'And for the love o' God,' he added with amiable exasperation,, 'will ya get in the car and we'll talk about it while I drive.' Reluctantly she climbed in, after a moment's hesitation, her curiosity outweighing even her aversion to the ancient vehicle. 'I told her my name after a short time,' she told him as he banged the door dosed after her. 'It was odd, she seemed willing enough for me to help her at first, in fact she actually made the first move and asked me if you were at home. It was when I told her my name that she became so I don't know. It was almost as if she hated me.' She turned wide, anxious eyes to him, forgetting for the moment her dislike of him in her anxiety about the girl's attitude towards her. 'I don't understand. I don't know why she should 90 dislike me even, let alone hate me as she appeared to do.' He flicked a look over his shoulder at her. 'Maybe you'll know why one day,' he told her evasively. 'In the meantime it's not my place to enlighten you. I don't think you'll blame her too much when you find out. She's a strange girl and passions run high with girls like Sheila Flaherty. Even a good sound religious upbringing doesn't hide it for very long.' She looked at him curiously, wondering how well he knew the girl. 'Mrs. Monahan at the village shop asked me in for tea and to shelter from the rain,' she began, but his. snort of laughter halted the rest of her statement. 'And to collect any possible gossip,' he said, 'if I know Binty Monahan and I do.' 'She didn't collect any from me,' Cerys denied shortly. 'But she did tell me that Sheila Flaherty's mother was a tinker.' 'So she was,' he concurred, 'and people like Binty Monahan are never likely to let her forget it either.' 'I gathered something like that,' Cerys said. 'She was a very unpleasant type of woman and a terrible snob.' He laughed, a full-throated roar of merriment that danced in his eyes when he flicked a look at her, the wide smile spread across his face. Cerys stared at him in surprise and curiosity and he shook his head at her. 'That's a real case of the pot calling the kettle black,' he told her, 'if ever I heard it.' 'Stop it!' Her own vehemence surprised her and she felt the familiar tightness hold her body stiffly upright in the high-backed seat of the old car. 'I'm not a snob, and you have no right to call me one. I I felt sorry for Sheila Flaherty, genuinely sorry for her because she 91 was frightened and unable to help herself or so it seemed to me.' 'You don't have to feel sorry for her,' he told her, his laughter stilled by her obvious sincerity. 'She has a good home with old Tom and she wants for nothing as far as I know. Why should you feel sorry for her she's not as helpless as you seem to think either.' 'I I don't know.' She sought hard for the right words to explain her feelings, although she did not know quite why she should bother to. 'It was partly because of the way Mrs. Monahan spoke about her, I suppose. She's been an orphan since she was a baby to all intents, with her father going off and leaving her as he did and and being half gypsy or tinker, or whatever it is you call it.' 'You think that's reason for pity?' he asked, and she sent him a curious glance, uncertain what his motive was for asking that particular question. 'Well, I suppose it is when there are people like Mrs. Monahan to be always bringing it up as a skeleton in your cupboard,' she said. 'I suppose it matters tlien to the person concerned.' 'But it doesn't matter to you?' The blue eyes sent her a look of enquiry and she noticed that the usual glint of laughter was absent. 'No, of course not,' she told him. 'Then I'm sorry I laughed,' he said quietly. 'I'm truly sorry too that I called you a snob, however indirectly.' She glanced at him hastily, suspecting the sincerity of his apology, but his face was quite serious and, more important, so was the expression in his eyes. 'I don't see why it should matter so much to anyone else what the girl is," she told him. 'Whether she's half gypsy or not can't possibly concern anyone else, can it?' 'Of course not,' he agreed softly. 'After all, Liam 92 Rogan is half gypsy, isn't he?' 'Half?', The question escaped her before she realised the implication and he looked at her again briefly, turning the old car into the drive. There had been a certain air of surprise in the look he gave her and she wondered.why. 'Something has to account for those grey eyes, hasn't it?' he asked quietly, and she stared at him in silence. She made no protest when he drove right up to the house but merely made a polite murmur of thanks when he opened the door of the car and handed her out. 'Thank you.' 'If you'll take a friendly word of advice,' he told her, dosing the door and standing beside her on the driveway, 'you won't say too much about Sheila Flaherty to the family.' 'Oh?' Wide eyes looked at him curiously. 'I had wondered if there was anything that we could do for her while her grandfather's away I mean, but since she ' He shook his head discouragingly. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'She won't thank you for it and it may prove embarrassing, for you and others.' 'I don't understand,' she said. 'How can ' 'Don't ask so many questions,' he interrupted with a return to his more usual manner, 'but stay away from Sheila. Don't worry about her, someone will be looking out for her.' She thought she detected some sort of implication in his tone as well as his words and she looked at him for a moment thoughtfully. 'You?' she guessed, and half smiled at the thought. 'She's a very pretty girl.' He laughed, one finger tapping the end of her nose lightly. 'An' not half as nosey as some,' he teased her. 'Goodbye, Cerys.' 93 He was half-way down the drive before she realised he had used her Christian name and she had been too preoccupied to object, watching him steer the ancient car down to his cottage with the usual accompaniment of rattles and squeaks. 'O'Rourke?' Liam's voice from the doorway made her turn hastily a smile on her face. 'Yes,' she agreed, 'he gave me a lift from about half-v^ay up the hill. Not,' she added, 'that I couldn't just as well have walked.' 'I thought I heard that clap-trap of his,' Liam sneered. With the recent mention of snobbery still fresh in her mind Cerys frowned. 'Perhaps he can't afford a better one,' she suggested, noting his look of surprise at her defence of Kevin O'Rourke. 'That's nonsense,' he said shortly, obviously resenting her reply. 'It's just a fetish to play the povertystricken country doctor, and it's not only unnecessary, it's irritating.' 'Isn't he poverty-stricken?' she asked, her eyes looking after the ancient car as it rattled away out of s.ight down the drive. Of course not,' Liam retorted. 'It's an act, and only someone who could afford the luxury of self-sacrifice as he can would indulge in it.' His vehemence surprised her and she stared at him for a moment in silence. 'You mean he's he's got money and he doesn't ' 'He chooses not to accept his father's position and money for the sake of some ' He bit back the words that seemed to be crowding one another to be spoken and she wondered how long the bitterness he felt had been rankling in his mind waiting to be revealed. 'It he prefers to make his own way that's in his 94 favour, surely?' she suggested quietly and a little cautiously. 'He's as proud as Lucifer and ten times more annoying,' Liam decreed. 'I don't like the man.' , 'So you said once before,' Cerys murmured, thinking ?that perhaps a stronger word could have been more ^applicable. 95