An Irish Country Wedding (26 page)

“You did, and at first I thought, good Lord. You, O’Reilly? Married? I thought you were completely set in your ways, like me, but you surprised me and it’s wonderful news. I am truly delighted for you.” He sighed and glanced at an oil painting of a striking woman mounted sidesaddle on a black gelding. A long ponytail escaped from under a John Bull top hat. Piercing blue eyes smiled straight at the artist—and the beholder. “I still miss Laura, you know. She’s gone nine years in August.”

“The first time I met her, and you, back in ’35, she looked just like that. She looked as if she was a female centaur, she was so comfortable on her horse.”

“Before the Portaferry Hounds Boxing Day hunt. I remember it. We were just back from India. I was a captain then.”

“She’d sprained her ankle and I was a medical student. You asked me to take a look.”

The marquis smiled. “And she swore to me blind that you’d said it was all right for her to hunt. Bloody thing swelled up like a barrage balloon.” He sighed and took a sip of his drink. “She was a game one, my Laura,” he said softly. “Even if the war took a chunk out of them we had twenty-two wonderful years and a son, Sean, to follow me into my old regiment.” He paused and looked Fingal in the eye. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned that. I do know what the war did to your
—
”

“Don’t worry, John. I’ll always carry a soft spot in my heart for my Deirdre, but I’m certain she’d approve of Kitty. Want me to be happy. I expect your Laura would have felt the same if the right woman came along for you.”

“Not likely at my age, but thanks for the thought, Fingal.” The marquis cleared his throat, offered a hand, and said, “It’s not the custom to say congratulations, but may I wish you and your bride-to-be every happiness?”

“You may, John.” He shook the proffered hand.

“I first met your Kitty at my Christmas party and last at the Downpatrick Races a month ago. Dublin lass. Nursing sister. Remarkable eyes with amber flecks. You’re a lucky man, Fingal.” The marquis lifted his glass. “To you both.”

“
Sláinte
,” O’Reilly said, and thought, Lucky man? By God I am. “The big day’s Saturday, July third. Kitty’s father is dead and she has no close male relatives. Would you, as a favour to us, stand in for him, walk her up the aisle, John? Give her away?”

“Why, I’d be honoured. Truly honoured.” He stood, went to a mahogany escritoire, and consulted a desk diary. “In the morning?”

“Aye. Eleven thirty. And there’ll be a reception after the ceremony. Your sister Myrna’ll get her invitation to both through the post.”

The marquis frowned. “I’m supposed to be attending some damn meeting. It’ll wait. I’d not miss your big day, my friend. Not for anything.” He lifted a pen and wrote.

“Thank you.” O’Reilly took a swallow of his drink. “My friend.” It was true. They’d become reacquainted here in Ballybucklebo after the war because of a mutual love of rugby football. They’d both played for Ireland, and John MacNeill, once the social gap between a commoner and a peer had been bridged, was a very easy man to like.

“That’s taken care of.” The marquis turned. “Formal dress, I presume?”

Fingal chuckled. “Kitty wants me to wear my naval number ones.”

“Lord. I don’t think even my butler, Thompson, knows where my Guards’ kit has got to.”

“Don’t worry, John. Top hat and tails’ll be fine.”

“Good. Thompson will know where those are. Poor chap has to do double duty as my valet these days. Had to let Smithers my
valet go three years ago. Taxes, you know. I was able to get him a
position, but I was sorry to lose him.” The marquis shrugged. “Now, you did say you’d a couple of questions? What’s the other?”

One thing, O’Reilly thought, about John MacNeill. He comes straight to the point. “It’s about the MacNeill Scholarship.”

“The what?” He frowned.

“MacNeill Scholarship. According to the bursar at Queen’s it’s specifically for kids from County Down, kids from poor backgrounds, to go to Queen’s medical school.”

A smile creased the marquis’s face. “Of course, of course. Unfortunately we don’t get many applicants.” He tapped his temple
with one finger. “Sometimes things do slip my mind, but you’re absolutely right. I remember my father granting it once or twice. As
I recollect, I gave one in ’56. Nice young man from Banbridge,
Arthur
 
… Arthur Furey. He’s in Canada now. Surgeon in To
ronto. I get a Christmas card from him every year.” He stood.

“I have a candidate I’d like to recommend.”

“Do you?” The marquis stretched out his hand. “Here. Let me refill that.” He took O’Reilly’s glass and moved to the sideboard. “Tell me about him.”

O’Reilly said, “I’m afraid the him is a her, but she’s a remarkable young woman.”

The marquis came back and handed O’Reilly his refilled glass. “Oh.” He sat. “That’s a bit tricky.”

“I do know,” O’Reilly said. “I’ve been told that it’s specifically for young men, but I’ve also been told there may be a codicil, and apparently the whole thing is in your gift.”

The marquis folded his arms and supported his chin with his left hand. “Tell me about her.”

“Her name’s Helen Hewitt. She’s single, she’ll be twenty-two this August. Helen left one position in a dress shop, then lost her job last month when a linen mill closed down. At the moment she’s my temporary receptionist.”

John frowned. “She doesn’t seem academically well qualified. Am I missing something?”

O’Reilly grinned. “She has three Advanced level subjects—physics, chemistry, and biology. She reads Dickens for pleasure, understands X-ray crystallography, and thinks she wants a career in medical research.
And
she’s had the gumption to enquire about the admission requirements.”

“Sounds like a regular polymath, by jove. Just the type the original bequest was looking for.” The marquis smiled. “I should have known you’d not be recommending someone who wasn’t special, Fingal.”

“She’s that, all right. She can go to medical school
 
… if she can afford it. That’s the rub. She’s been with us for four weeks. She’s bright as a bee, hard-working, keeps her head. She wanted to go to university three years ago when she left school, but her mother had just died. That’s why the thoughts about research. Helen wants to discover the cure for cancer. Her da’s a workingman, but between
him and his missus they probably could have afforded to send
Helen, but once there was only one wage
—
”

“And that’s the kind of thing the scholarship was meant to put right. Pity she’s a girl, but of course folks did think differently about the sexes back in Victoria’s day.”

“And when I was a student at Trinity in the ’30s. The women students had their own dissecting room and anatomy lectures in deference to their sensitive natures, but these days things have moved along a bit.”

The marquis shook his head and said, “I do know that, but it still might not allow me to alter the bequest. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do. As far as I know the law protects the terms of most wills. I’m truly sorry, Fingal.”

“Could you perhaps look at the original bequest? See exactly what was specified?”

“I fully intend to do that, but I can’t today.”

O’Reilly was going to ask Why the hell not? But he took a slow sip of his drink and realised that would be impertinent and instead said, “I’d be very grateful, John. You’ll let me know?”

“The documents are with my solicitor. Unfortunately he’s up in Ballymoney for two weeks’ salmon fishing on the Bush River. He’ll be back the second week in June. I’ll ask him to take a look as soon as he is and I’ll phone you, or better still, don’t we have a rugby club executive on June eleventh?”

“We do,” O’Reilly said.

“I’ll see you there, then.” He glanced at the clock. “Now, I don’t want to rush you, Fingal, but
—
”

“You’ve a meeting to go to.” O’Reilly finished his whiskey and stood.

“It’s the fourth Thursday of the month. County Council. Some business about roadworks.” The marquis raised his eyes to the heavens and said with a smile, “You have absolutely no idea how utterly, positively riveting discussions of roadworks can be.”

“Rather you than me,” O’Reilly said. “I’m sure the next rugby club executive will be much more fun. I’ll see you there, John.”

28

A Place for Everything

“Keep Mairead in bed and don’t let her eat or drink anything,” Barry said into the phone. “What? Gerry, don’t be daft. Of course I don’t mind coming out on a Saturday morning. I’m on call. I’ll be right over.” Barry put the phone down and headed up the stairs to where O’Reilly, Kitty, and Kinky were deep in conversation. He was impatient to be on his way to the Shanks’s, but knew important decisions were being made.

“I do be sure you are right, sir,” Kinky was saying, “only close friends and family in church, and you’ll both need to speak to Mister Robinson the Presbyterian minister about the ceremony, so. He may want to change the service.”

Kitty said, “I can’t see him going on about ‘the procreation of children— ’”

O’Reilly roared with laughter then said, “‘Then Abraham laughed and fell on his face and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old?’ Genesis 17:17. Come on, Kitty. I’m not quite a hundred yet.”

Kinky smiled and said, “No sir, but you are no spring chicken either, so.”

That teasing of her boss was more like the old Kinky, Barry thought. He looked at Kitty and wondered how she really felt. Would she have liked to have been the mother of their children? He’d never know and it was too late for that now.

“And I’d like the ‘obey’ bit taken out, Fingal,” Kitty said. “It
is
1965.”

“Consider it done.” He reached over and touched her arm.

Kinky said, “That’s the decision about the service taken care
of, but you still have to decide what you want to do for a reception.”

O’Reilly pursed his lips and said, “The whole village won’t mind not being invited to the church, but the do after’s a different matter. I’d prefer to keep it small, but
—
”

“Me too,” said Kitty. “The folks who’ve been to the ceremony, maybe a few others.”

“But then we have to think of the rest of the village,” O’Reilly said. “What happens if we invite Bertie and Flo Bishop, and Cissie Sloan because she’ll be playing the harmonium in church, but not Aggie Arbuthnot? We could put a lot of noses out of joint among the folks who think they should have been asked, but haven’t.” He looked up and noticed Barry standing in the doorway. “What do you think, Barry, about who we should ask to the reception?”

“You know the village a lot better than I, Fingal. All I can tell you is that I had a damn sight more fun at Seamus and Maureen Galvin’s going-away party in your back garden where the whole village was invited than I had at Bertie Bishop’s Boxing Day do, where the guest list was more select.” He had every reason to want completely to forget Bertie Bishop’s Boxing Day party.

“True.” O’Reilly scratched his chin, eyed Barry, and then turned to the women again. “Kinky? Kitty?”

“Excuse me,” Barry said. “That was Gerry Shanks on the
phone. Mairead’s period’s two weeks late, and she fainted. I’m off to see her. Just wanted to let you know. Probably only a touch of what my old prof described as ‘Oh, pregnant women get that a lot,’ when he couldn’t make head nor tail of the not-very-specific symptoms of early pregnancy.” Barry didn’t like the sound of the faint, but there could be a simple explanation.

“Off you go. We’ll take care of things while you’re out.” O’Reilly turned back to Kinky. As he left, Barry heard, “Come on, Kinky, you’ve been here longer than any of us. Small crowd or free-for-all?” Fingal O’Reilly was certainly working hard at reminding Kinky Kincaid how important she was to him and Number One Main.

*   *   *

“Doctor Laverty,” said Gerry Shanks as he opened the door. He bent to two children who were peeping round his legs. “Angus. Siobhan. Run away on over to your auntie Gertie’s. Tell her Mammy’s poorly and needs you minded for a wee while. Go on. Daddy and Mammy has to see Doctor Laverty, so we have.”

Barry stood inside the hall and remembered that O’Reilly had delivered a breech-birth baby for Gertie Gorman last year.

“Here, Angus. Here’s sixpence,” said the boy’s father. “Buy you and your wee sister some dolly mixtures or midget gems.” He shooed his two children out.

Two shrill voices chorused, “Thank you for the sweeties, Daddy,” and the children ran off.

Gerry shut the door. “Good of you to come, sir.”

“Not at all, Gerry. Where’s Mairead?”

“In bed. Come on, I’ll show yiz, sir.”

Barry followed along a hall decorated with black-and-white photographs of rows of men in sports gear all looking purposefully at the camera. In each photo, the central seated figure, presumably the captain, held a soccer ball with the year’s date painted on it. Gerry, Barry remembered, was a keen supporter of the Glentoran Football Club.

“In here.” Gerry showed Barry into a tidy bedroom where
Mairead lay covered with a pink candlewick bedspread on a dou
ble bed. “Hello, Doctor Laverty. Sorry to bring you. I’m feeling much better, so I am. I think I’m mending.”

“I’m glad to hear it, but seeing that I’m here I’d like to ask you a few questions. Examine you.”

“If you’ll excuse me, Doc, I’ll wait outside,” Gerry said.

It was customary for men to absent themselves when their wives were being examined.

“Put you the kettle on, Gerry,” Mairead said. “Doctor Laverty might like a wee cup of tea in his hand when he’s finished with me.”

Barry said, “Thank you, but let’s see to you first, Mairead.”

Barry studied her face. She was very pale. Tiny sweat beads stood out on her forehead. Her eyes were bright and focused. “So
tell me what happened,” Barry asked, beginning to wonder, sim
ply because of her pallor, if it was more than “Oh, pregnant women get that a lot.”