The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [112]
Norry looked to see whether both the kitchen doors were shut, and then, putting both her hands on the table, leaned across towards her cousin.
“Herself wants it,” she said in a whisper.
“Wants what? What are you saying?”
“Wants the farm, I tell ye, and it’s her that’s driving Lambert.”
“Is it Charlotte Mullen?” asked Julia, in a scarcely audible voice.
“Now ye have it,” said Norry, returning to her onions, and shutting her mouth tightly.
The cockatoo gave a sudden piercing screech, like a note of admiration. Julia half got up, and then sank back into her chair.
“Are ye sure of that?”
“As sure as I have two feet,” replied Norry, “and I’ll tell ye what she’s afther it for. It’s to go live in it, and to let on she’s as grand as the other ladies in the counthry.”
Julia clenched the bony, discoloured hand that lay on the table.
“Before I saw her in it I’d burn it over my head!”
“Not a word out o’ ye about what I tell ye,” went on Norry in the same ominous whisper. “Shure she have it all mapped this minnit, the same as a pairson’d be makin’ a watch. She’s sthriving to make a match with young Misther Dysart and Miss Francie, and b’leeve you me, ‘twill be a quare thing if she’ll let him go from her. Sure he’s the gentlest crayture ever came into a house, and he’s that innocent he wouldn’t think how cute she was. If ye’d see her, ere yestherday, follying him down to the gate, and she smilin’ up at him as sweet as honey! The way it’ll be, she’ll sell Tally Ho house for a fortune for Miss Francie, though, indeed, it’s little fortune himself’ll ax!”
The words drove heavily through the pain of Julia’s head, and their meaning followed at an interval.
“Why would she give a fortune to the likes of her?” she asked; “isn’t it what the people say, it’s only for a charity she has her here?”
Norry gave her own peculiar laugh of derision, a laugh with a snort in it.
“Sharity! It’s little sharity ye’ll get from that one! Didn’t I hear the old misthress tellin’ her, and she sthretched for death—and Miss Charlotte knows well I heard her say it—’Charlotte,’ says she, and her knees dhrawn up in the bed, ‘Francie must have her share.’ And that was the lasht word she spoke.” Norry’s large wild eyes roved skywards out of the window as the scene rose before her. “God rest her soul, ‘tis she got the death aisy!”
“That Charlotte Mullen may get it hard!” said Julia savagely. She got up, feeling new strength in her tired limbs, though her head was reeling strangely, and she had to grasp at the kitchen table to keep herself steady. “I’ll go on now. If I die for it I’ll go to Bruff this day.”
Norry dropped the onion she was peeling, and placed herself between Julia and the door.
“The divil a toe will ye put out of this kitchen,” she said, flourishing her knife; “is it you walk to Bruff?”
“I must go to Bruff,” said Julia again, almost mechanically; “but if you could give me a taste of sperrits, I think I’d be better able for the road.”
Norry pulled open a drawer, and took from the back of it a bottle containing a colourless liquid.
“Drink this to your health!” she said in Irish, giving some in a mug to Julia; “it’s potheen I got from friends of me own, back in Curraghduff.” She put her hand into the drawer again, and after a little search produced from the centre of a bundle of amorphous rags a cardboard box covered with shells. Julia heard, without heeding it, the clink of money, and then three shillings were slapped down on the table beside her. “Ye’ll go to Conolly’s now, and get a car to dhrive ye,” said Norry defiantly; “or howld on till I send Bid Sal to get it for ye. Not a word out o’ ye now! Sure, don’t I know well a pairson wouldn’t think to put his money in his pocket whin he’d be hasting that way lavin’ his house.”
She did not wait for an answer, but shuffled to the scullery door, and began to scream for Bid Sal in her usual