Changeling, and Other Stories 22 – Byrne · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Changeling, and Other Stories 22Part 4 · Chapter 5
18
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Changeling, and Other Stories 22
Part 4 · Chapter 5
ByrneEnglish
So that when she met him she did not recognize him at first, nor for many days afterward. On his face were puzzlement and a frown. A clean-cut, red-headed man, he was standing in the road on a frosty November morning, when she was out walking a brace of foxhound puppies. The puppies seemed delighted at the sight of him, all but tearing the leash from her hand.
"Could you tell me," he asked, "where Tallaght is?" He pulled the ears of the foxhound puppies.
"You 're in Tallaght," she said.
He looked incredulously at the scattered houses.
"Is this--"
"Yes. Is there any place in particular you 're looking for?"
"No," he said, "just Tallaght."
"Well, you have Tallaght." She laughed a little at his rueful expression. "You seem surprised."
"I am," he laughed. "For many years, when I was a child, I have been hearing about Tallaght, until it had assumed tremendous proportions for me, and now--"
"Abroad?"
"Yes."
"Australia?"
"No. America."
"What are you looking for? The old homestead?"
"No," he said; "I don't think there ever was an old homestead. There might have been a little cabin somewhere, but it was n't here." He laughed. "I 'll tell you. My father was an old Fenian, and he was at Tallaght when they gathered to descend on Dublin, but for some reason or other the battle was not fought, nor the enemy driven into the sea, nor anything. And my father, with a lot of others, fled to America. But I had an impression of a mountain pass and camp fires and great guns."
"It rained all night, did n't it? Did your father say?"
"No, he never mentioned the rain."
She liked this man, she told herself directly. The big, clean look of him, his gray eyes and red hair, his splendid teeth. Also there was something about him so easy. He was Irish; no mistaking that. But pleasant, fine Irish. It was not always you met them pleasant and sincere. And this man was sincere. This man was not inimical. They would make a nice pair, she thought simply, he big and clear-eyed and red, herself slim and dark.
"Could I bother you again?" he asked. "How do I get to the railway station?"
"I 'm going that way, if you care to come."
There was a nice chivalry about him; she felt that as they walked together. Was that American? she wondered.
"May I ask you something? Are most Americans like you?"
"Yes," he said, "of course."
She was puzzled. She had an impression that all Americans were called "Silas" and twanged, "I guess." Also, they chewed gum. There was something wrong.
"You are n't called Silas, are you?"
"No; Richard. Did you think all Americans were called Silas?"
"Something like that," she admitted. And they looked at each other and laughed. She had a joyous feeling that the maids at home would disapprove of this strongly. And that the old gardeners would tremble with rage. But the dogs approved.
"What sort of time are you having in Ireland?"
"Not so good," he admitted. "I 've been here a week, and the only friends I 've made are cab-drivers. Also, I have a bowing acquaintance with a head waiter."
"Cab-drivers are good fun," she ruminated.
They were at the station now.
"Look here," she said suddenly as she was leaving: "if you are having a rotten time like that in Dublin, and know nobody, it must be lonely! I wonder--" She looked at him fearlessly. "Look here: if you 'd care to, come out and see me at Mount Kyteler--my name 's Kyteler. There are dogs and horses and an old house you might like to see."
"May I? Thanks. My name's O'Conor. I 'll come, then, Miss Kyteler."
"Lady Margery Kyteler."
"Do I call you all that? Lady Margery Kyteler?"
"No. Just Lady Margery."
"Lady Margery! That's nice."
When he came, he came with a great armful of flowers, which Margery received with a smile and courtesy, and turned over to Rose Ann. He seemed scrubbed, so glistening was he. How like an old friend he was, with his firm handshake and laughing eyes.
"Now," he said, "I 'd like the worst over."
"What is the worst?"
"Oh, meeting people. Your relatives. The Lady This and the Lady That, and the countess, and the duke. Above all, the duke."
"There are none," she said. "I live here by myself."
"All by yourself, in this big house?"
"Yes."
"Might I ask, are you married?"
"No-o-o," she pondered. "Um, no."
He looked at her incredulously. He had never in his life seen any one so beautiful, he thought. The small face, the soft and sweet and smiling dark eyes, the hair like a perfumed dark cap on a head whose sweet shape he could imagine. And the supple figure in the frock that was close in the bosom and belled like a dancer's from the waist down.
"Well, that beats--" he murmured.
"Beats hell, doesn't it?" She finished for him.
"These old pictures, some of them are good." She smiled. "That's Gilles de Kyteler--not the one who came with Strongbow but a later one. And that's Fulke Kyteler, who rebelled with Silken Thomas, and tried to burn the Archbishop of Cashel in his own cathedral. They were very disappointed when they found the archbishop had slipped out. And that--" she pointed to a polished oval of black stone, framed in antique silver--"is Dame Alice Kyteler's magical mirror. She was the greatest of the Irish witches."
She gave him tea and listened to him talk of America and of his work there. He was some sort of engineer, building bridges. She got an impression of him standing on an artifice of some kind, with plans in his hand, directing a whole crowd of workmen. He had been in Brazil and in China.
"You must be a good engineer," she said in her direct way.
"I 'm supposed to be a very good engineer," he laughed.
"Do you make a great deal of money?"
"A good deal. Not a great deal."
"I 'm glad," she said. He looked at her in surprise. She was dusting her fingers daintily, but her eyes smiled. She was really glad. And he said to himself, "My soul! we 're friends."
She took him into the garden, and he laughed.
"And I brought you flowers." There was a little shade of disappointment in his laugh.
"Indeed and indeed--" she looked him in the eyes and lied sweetly--"'Twas I needed them, for it's the devil and all for me to get any flowers out of my own garden. My two old gardeners are that mean! Darby 'd begrudge me a daisy for fear it 'd leave an unsightly gap in the grass. There he is, watching me for fear I 'll pull a leaf. Darby, this is Mr. O'Conor, and I 'm showing him the garden."
"If he 'd come fifteen years ago, your Ladyship, or even ten years ago, he 'd have seen the like would have made his heart glad. But in the latter years, with the bad weather that's in it, now too much rain and now not enough rain at all, and the wind that nothing is a shelter against, and the soil that's growing poor, for all the time that's spent on it, till it's hard to rear anything, even a head o' cabbage itself--m'lady, will you for God's sake leave off pulling at that hedge?"
She took him to see old Fenian in the paddock, and she liked the way he pulled the jumper's ears, ran his firm hand down the fetlocks.
"Was he a great horse?"
"Nearly the greatest of his day," she answered. "He never won a Grand National, but was third twice and second once. He had a great heart. No horse tried harder. The people loved him.... Kelleher, this is Mr. O'Conor, from America."
"From America, is it, your Ladyship? Oh, sure, they 've fine horses over there. But they 've got to come to us for the hunters. Begging your Ladyship's pardon, but was your Honor ever in Kansas City?"
"I was."
"D' your Honor ever meet a man named Hannigan out there? Red Hannigan, they called him, a holy terror for bloody murder, the same man was."
"I don't think so."
"He was n't as red as your Honor--begging your pardon--but sandy like. And he carried his head on one side on account of a belt in the gob he got in a wee argument out at the Lamb Doyle's."
"He must have gone when I got there."
"He must have, your Honor, or you 'd have met him. A genius for horses, the same Red. 'T was he cured Colonel Nolan's charger of biting. 'Roast a leg of lamb,' he told them, 'and take it out of the oven mad hot, and when he offers to bite,' says he, let him bite into that. By God! he 'll never bite again.' And he never did."
Came at last the time for leaving.
"I wonder," he ventured, "I wonder if I could get you to come in and have dinner and go to the theater. I don't know what kind of a theater it is, but would you?"
How like a flower she herself was, he thought--the white stalk of her dress, the sweet face, the dark head! She frowned. His heart sank.
"I don't see how I could," she said. "I 've got to get back here. I usually take the dinners and theaters in a quarterly debauch of one week. No, I don't see how ..."
His heart sank a little farther. Was this definitely good-by?
"No, but I 'll tell you what you could do, if you 'd care to. Come out on Saturday and take me to the Leopardstown races. I 'm sick of going alone."
His heart rose.
"And come back and have dinner with me instead."
His heart sang.
Came now a day of wonder. Day of Leopardstown, frosty morning and road glistening like pewter, and the grass crackling underfoot, stiff with hoar. The little race-course at the foot of the mountains. Crowds stamping in the friendly cold. The horses jibbing, curving under their jockeys at the starting-wire. Flash of jockeys' colors, gold and green, red and white, all sorts of blue--sky, sea, St. Patrick's. The drop of the flag. The flying wedge of stretching mounts and huddled riders. Thunder of hoofs coming to jumps, hurdling, lightning spring and over, larruping canter toward the next, smack of crop, over, by Heaven! The hedge now and the five-barred gate, and the stretch toward the judges' stand. A mad cheering and the clanging of a great bell. The favorite 's won!
A little hush, a rush to the ring to see the horses for the next race. She wore a great frieze coat, like a man's, and a riding-hat, like a man's too. At a little distance she seemed like a boy in clothes too big for him, and as one came nearer, one noticed, between the collar and the brim of the hat, the sweet narrow neck and the hair gathered up like some very little girl's. There was something heart-pulling in it, like a child's curled fingers. And then she turned, and her face showed, pointed like a cub fox's. The cheeks flushed with the cold, the lips with a merry smile, her eyes with a deeper smile--there were so many there who knew her, and to whom O'Conor was presented, including an Irish duchess, with a voice like a saw, who rasped; "H' a' yo?" and then wailed, "My God! D' yo' ever see such a God-forsaken bunch o' mokes in all your life?" And a tall, thin baronet who asked him was he one of the O'Conors of Baltimore, to which he replied, no, that he was one of the O'Conors of Forty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue. "Ah, yes! Ah, yes!" There was a French cavalry officer buying horses in Ireland, a dark, thin man with a heavy mustache, who looked more like a New York plain-clothes policeman than a hero of Algiers. Also, there was Mr. Kelly.
Margery had noticed a great rangy gelding in the ring. He looked to have the power of a steam-engine.
"See?"
O'Conor nodded.
"Flying Fish."
A large red-faced man with a stout ash plant was passing.
"Oh, Mr. Kelly!"
"Ah, sure, Lady Margery!"
"Do you know anything of Flying Fish?" She lowered her voice. "Is he a good horse?"
"He is. And he is n't."
"Might he win this race?"
"He might. And he might n't."
"You 're not telling me much."
"I am," he looked wise, "and I am n't," he looked wiser.
"Good enough," she said. "Come," she told O'Conor.
Bookies crying raucously in the little ring. Signaling of touts. Milling of people.
"I 'll lay two to one the field," a booky was shouting. His eyes were all but out of his cheeks. His shoulders hunched with effort. His voice exploded as though thrown against a wall, and he atomized a fine spray before him. "I 'll lay three to one bar one; I'll lay four to one bar two. I'll lay even money Munster Pride. Even money Irish Dragoon. Four to one Little Dorrit. Seven to two Carnation. Here, four to one Carnation. Eight to one Murderer's Pet. Twelve to one Irish Gentility. I 'll lay twenty to one--twenty to one Thunderbolt. Twenty-five to one Flying Fish--"
"How much, Joe Jack?"
"Is it you, Lady Margery? God love you. I'll lay you thirty to one Flying Fish. How much will you take?"
"Ten pounds' worth."
"Three hundred and ten pounds Flying Fish, Lady Margery Kyteler. I hope you win, m'lady. I do so there I 'll lay two to one the field. I 'll lay three to one bar one. I 'll lay four to one bar two--"
Dropping of flag and clatter of bell. There they were in the distance, flying down the regulation. They rise to the ditch, three abreast. Canter again--the water jump. The lump becomes a line. And who's ahead? Can you see? Carnation! Ah, my jewel Carnation! And now the bank. There's a horse down. Thunderbolt! Ah, be damned to the same Thunderbolt! Is that the gray ahead? It is so! Is it Flying Fish is in it? Flying Fish it is, and he running like a hare! 'T is win in a canter he will. They 're coming to the hedge. Ah! what is it, Mister? Flying Fish it is, and he stopping dead. A dead stop he 's made, and the jockey pasting the ribs out of him. Ah, he 's on now, but in the heel of the hunt he is! Carnation wins. Carnation--ah, my sweet wee lady!
They passed the post, Flying Fish bringing up the rear with a supercilious arrogance.
"Fish!" Margery wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Fish was good."
And "There goes my new hat!" she wailed. And who should pass by but Mr. Kelly. Out of his red face peered an inquisitive gray eye.
"You didn't?" he said.
"I did."
"How much?"
"Ten pounds."
"Ah, well," he decided cruelly; "It'll teach you." And he passed on.
"Well, the devil scald you!" she called after him, "and your thick ignorance!"
Last race and the end of the day. He swung her lightly to the side-car. Firm elbows, rounded arms, and how light she was, elastic! A woman in a shawl and a battered sailor-hat stood with folded arms and began a street ballad:
"Bold Robert Emmet, the darling of Ireland!
Bold Robert Emmet, he died with a smile!
Farewell, my company-ions both loyal and loving!
A hero I 'll die for the Emerald Isle."
Margery was grinning above the press of the people, O'Conor turned and dug his hand in his pocket. Threw the woman a large silver coin.
"Well, may God keep and preserve you, my fine noble red-headed man! And the sweet lady beside you--may God bless her! And may you live comfortable and die happy, the both of you, and leave behind you a dozen of the finest children."
"Drive on! Drive on!" O'Conor implored.
"Is it over the heads of the decent people you 'd have me drive, then?" asked the jarvey, in abrupt horror.
"And of the twelve may six of them be like yourself, fine and red-headed, and six like herself, sweet and dark. Ah, 't is the fine man you have, my sweet mistress!"
O'Conor saw the scarlet of her face against the black hair. Eh, Lord, how beautiful she was!
