Читать книгу Nine Strings To Your Bow - Maurice Walsh - Страница 12

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Peter had not far to go. He turned the corner and saw Barbara’s two-seater close to the kerb. He found his feet moving faster and schooled them back to their old pace.

On the side he was on, the Catholic chapel stood back from the street inside tall railings. As Peter passed the open gate a clergyman came out. He was short and old, with sagging pink chops and a noble mass of white hair.

“Peter—Peter Falkner! my dear boy!” he cried out in a baritone voice that filled his whole squat torso. He dropped a biretta on the gravel, caught up his many-buttoned soutane from his feet, and came at a shuffling scramble of a run.

“Man, you’re back—you’re back! I needed you.” His voice went deep and shook. “Thank God! You are all right, boy?”

“I am not, Padre,” said Peter suddenly serious, “and I have a confession to make. Those two bits of prayers you asked me to say when all else failed—I did not say them.”

“What harm—what harm! I could not pray myself—my prayers went dry on me. Peter, I am afraid. I’m sick afraid. There is an evil man amongst us. I have no patience with that fellow Mullen, and the other dam’ fools who ought to know better. Tell me, boy, did the knowledge of your own innocence keep your courage up?”

“It did not, Padre.” Peter shook his head. “It did not help me at all. I know that for I had not one scrap of courage the whole year. I haven’t now.”

“Oh, dear—oh, dear! What have we done to you?” The old man’s chin quivered. “We don’t deserve you amongst us. Look, boy! Go away back to your own country and draw the strings of your life together.”

“With my tail between my legs? They would know over there, too. I’m staying.”

“God is good!” The priest patted Peter’s sleeve. “God is good, Peter! He will not allow evil to prevail against you forever. I can pray now.” He looked up at Peter and his eyes crinkled. “Will you come in? I have a small drop left in the bottle.”

“Not now, Padre. Barbara is waiting for me at Fosters’. But I’ll be in.”

The priest put a finger on Peter’s wrist. “Be good to Barbara, boy, and don’t ye be biting each other’s noses off. She made your trouble hers, as I know.”

“And you took the trouble of both. Could we nip each other’s ears now and then—you wouldn’t mind?”

“Ye will, whether or no.” Father Martin chuckled. “Well—well! I’ll not be keeping you now.”

A light hand was laid on Peter’s arm, and a voice like a bell with a singing note in it spoke at his shoulder.

“Praise God! It is Peter himself.”

Peter turned and looked at the young woman who was smiling warmly at him.

“Why Muriel, old girl!” he said. “You’d still knock a man’s eye out.”

That was an inadequate compliment. Muriel Gordon was a golden woman—gold, frankincense and myrrh—you could warm your hands at her. Not tall, she was built on generous flowing lines, and her pastel green frock was vibrant with the life inside it. A small white hat was perched on her hair over one eye, and the hair that it did not hide was fine gold, that Californian gold that has one touch of red in it. She smiled with her eyes and not with her teeth; and those grey eyes had a golden lustre that never goes with a mean mind.

Of all the people here in Eglintoun she knew best what it was Peter was going through at this moment. She, too, had suffered the curious stares of the townspeople, and had felt their speculations behind her back. The daughter of Denis Buckley, Mark Aitken’s farm foreman, she had lived with her father and Abigail Shaw, who had been her nurse and later their housekeeper, at the Home Farm. That was before Peter’s arrival on the scene from Canada. It was common talk in the town that Mark Aitken was much interested in his foreman’s daughter, and that it was more than a fatherly interest he felt for her. And when she had suddenly taken herself away, accompanied by the faithful Abigail, there was gossip. When Mark Aitken followed, that gossip mounted. But Mark Aitken came back alone and seemed more subdued than the people of Eglintoun had ever seen him before.

Three years later Muriel returned with a husband, whose name was Philip Gordon, and a two year old son called David. The dour, acid-tongued Abigail Shaw was in her element with a small child to care for. These four took a cottage in the village and settled down there to live. Denis Buckley, Muriel’s father, stayed on at the Home Farm with Peter, who was now estate manager, and took to drinking more than he should of a Saturday night in town.

“Blast them all!” Muriel said. “They couldn’t make you cry out, Peter. I knew.”

“You couldn’t know that, my darling,” Peter said.

“I could so. I knew you never killed Mark Aitken.”

Peter cocked an eye at her. “A pity we could not put a finger on the man that did?”

“I was only guessing and you had to go on suffering. But this old spider-priest will tell you that suffering is not a bad thing if you have the fibre to stand it. Some of us have not.” She laid her hand on the priest’s sleeve. “Well, you old curer of souls! What are you going to do with your two black sheep? Keep on trying to make Christians of us?”

“I may succeed with one of you.” The priest tapped her hand. “Don’t you be delaying Peter. Barbara is waiting for him. Peter son, off you go now!”

Peter and Muriel walked down Booth Street together. Con Madden was ahead of them pausing to look into shop windows. She put a hand inside Peter’s elbow, and moved forward, smoothly, on high-heeled shoes.

“I want to make Barbara jealous for the good of her soul,” she said. “You are now her baby who has falled down and hurt his poor little nose.”

“Boil your tow head, Muriel! Don’t you start babying me.”

“Not I, Peter! A man can take the pricks as they come. But don’t forget that Barbara is all right.”

“Are you still high-hatting each other? Why?”

“Dam’ well you know why.”

“I don’t. How are Phil and son Davy?”

“Fine. Davy missed you. By the way, you are losing a tenant. Phil has been promoted to the head office. We are going to Edinburgh in a month.”

“Good news—and bad too,” said Peter. “I wanted to make a pukka farmer of Davy—and a forester.”

“Like Toby Aitken?”

“Not on your life! Toby behaving himself?”

“Toby is no good. He is betting now you’ll cut and run with the money you inherited. That is what he would do.”

“I am staying on,” Peter said quietly. “I told Father Martin so.”

“Of course you are.” Her hand pressed. “You will be careful and watchful, Peter?”

“Someone else will have to be twice as careful. I’m half Aitken, and an Aitken was killed foully.”

“Just so! Don’t get another half-Aitken killed. Listen; you wouldn’t know that dad is leaving you? Coming up to town with us?”

“That’s bad news,” Peter said. “He taught me all I know, and I’ll miss the grumpy old bear.”

“And you his cub.” She laughed. “You liked each other?”

“Sure we did. How is he?”

“Older and grumpier. Hello, Mr. Madden! Back again? I did miss your sootherin’ Irish tongue.”

Con Madden had turned round from a window to face them. “Don’t talk to me, woman, you have broken my heart.”

“Right on a fracture off-repeated,” she said. “Do you know Mr. Peter Falkner?”

“I have heard of Mr. Falkner,” said Con. “He is too good a judge of company for me.”

“Mr. Madden is of an enquiring turn of mind, Peter. You try him. I have to be off. Phil is home and waiting for his supper—see you to-morrow, Peter.”

She went off, her white parasol swinging. Peter, head aside, looked at Con, and shut one eye at him.

“How privately did you investigate this lady, Mr. Madden?” Peter asked.

“I’ll investigate her some more,” Con said.

“You’ll have to get a move on, then. They—self, husband, son and father—are leaving here for good. Husband promoted to head office.”

“I’ll investigate that too,” Con said.

“You were right, Madden,” Peter said. “It will be no use to me living here under a cloud. If you don’t get me out from under I’ll break your bloody Irish neck.”

“I will and you couldn’t,” Con said. “No Canuck could. Look here, Falkner, I’ll absolve you from those two fears I taunted you with. You did not kill your uncle, and those two fine people across the street—You three make a team that I can use.”

“Then you have decided to stay with me?”

“I—think so. Do not leave your back door on the latch.”

“That’s my second warning to-day.”

“Your second warning?” said Con quickly.

“Yes. Muriel said I had to be watchful and careful.”

“Did she, begod! That’s interesting. But leave it for the time,” Con said. “That young lady has been frowning at you for the last five minutes. Go on now!”

And Con went off down the street in the general direction of the resort hotel where people came to drink the waters of the spring.