Then is this what she give you?' He kept silent.
'You see what I'm goin' to do with this,' she went on, and unwrapped the sweet. Then she spat on it and threw the toffee into a can of ashes by the range. 'Now listen,' she continued, 'if ever I catch you taking what she offers I'll tan the 'ide right off you d'you h'understand?'
'Yes'm.'
'For why? Because she's a nasty little piece that considers we're not good enough for 'er, and very likely a thief into the bargain. With her precious Miss Moira this and little Miss Evelyn that. Never again no more. Right?'
'Yes'm.'
'And what are you goin' to do with yerself this afternoon of springtime that you can't go h'out with the others? I'll tell you. You're goin' to set to work my lad.'
The boy who had been gazing at the floor suddenly stared at her sharp.
'Yes,' she said, 'that comes as a bit of a surprise d'ain't it? Never you mind. You got to start some day. You won't always be runnin' around with gentry and their stuck-up maids. Now you see that saucepan, the one which's last on the left?'
He looked reluctant at three burnished rows hanging on the dresser, on nails through the holes in their steel handles.
That's right,' she went on, 'the last on the left. You'll take that down so help me and you'll make a start scourin'. The young leddy was took faint. Took faint," she repeated giving a short laugh as Kale had done. 'Yes. One time she was out with Mrs Tennant. "It's the pots and pans," Mrs T. says to me after. "You'll oblige me by casting a look on them Madam," I said. "I can't help it Mrs Welch," she says, "I'm certain there was something in that sole or its sauce." Sauce indeed. But she never listened. So now you're going to make a start scourin' them saucepans. Even if you bring all the tin off and they get copper poison. Get on then.'
The boy got up slow.
'And don't you go break that thread I've 'ad put through the handles,' she cried frantic all of a sudden. 'You'll find where it's tied there by the side. I'm gettin' me chains and a padlock,' she explained grim as grim.
Kate had left the comb stuck at an angle in Paddy's head. The lampman sat where he was on a corn bin while she wandered round again. She came up to that glass division and looked through.
'Can a person eat them eggs?' she asked. He answered excitedly.
'That's all right,' she said. 'No need to get worked up. I only asked didn't I?'
He muttered something.
'Oh all right I know you set great store by the birds,' she replied, 'an' if you took one half the trouble over yourself as you do with their layin' why you'd be a different person altogether,' she explained.
He got up, made after her. 'No,' she said, 'no,' but she did not move as he came grinning. He reached round her middle and drank her in a kiss like a man home after a journey. He pressed her back against the glass that fronted that huge cabinet. Through the opening behind could be seen those peacocks getting up with a sort of cluttering as though alarmed. She sank into him as her knees gave way yet both of them stayed decent.
Out in the demesne Raunce said to Edith, 'I got to sit me down.'
'You got to sit down?' she echoed as he looked dull about him.
'I've come over queer,' he said. Indeed his face was now the colour of the pantry boy Albert's.
'Why you're not goin' to faint right off like I did surely,' she exclaimed and clucked with concern. 'Sit yourself on this stone,' she said, 'it's dry for one thing.'
He sat. He put his new terrible face into his hands. They stayed silent. The two children came up, stood and watched him.
'Run along,' she told them gentle. 'Go find Michael.'
When they were alone Raunce spoke. 'It must be the air,' he said.
She stood awkward at his side as though she could not think what to do. Then she said, 'If we were inside I could fetch you a cup of tea.' She talked soft with concern. He groaned.
'It's me dyspepsia,' he said. 'It's coming away in the air 'as done it.'
'But you do go out,' she replied low, 'I saw you when we were by the doves that dinner time.'
'That was only for a minute,' was his answer. 'But this long stretch…' and he ended his sentence with a groan. By and by however he grew better while she stood helpless at his bowed shoulders. After a time he got up. Then they summoned the little girls, tenderly made their way back to the Castle.
'You should take more care,' she kept on repeating.
It was some days later they sat in the servants' hall talking with dread of the I. R. A. They were on their own now, with the lady and her daughter still over in England, and the feeling they had was that they stood in worse danger than ever.
Kate asked the lampman if he had heard any rumours. Paddy gabbled an answer. As he did so he did not meet their eyes in this low room of antlered heads along the walls, his back to the sideboard with red swans.
Raunce's neck was tied up in a white silk scarf of Mr Jack's. He seemed to turn his head with difficulty to ask Kate what the Irishman had said.
'He says not to believe all you're told.'
'I don't,' Raunce put in at once. 'And that they're not so busy by half as what they was,' Kate ended.
Edith anxiously regarded her Charley.
'I should hope not indeed,' Miss Burch informed the company. Though I will say for Mrs Welch she was dead right when she forbade her girls passing the time of day with those tradesmen. Just in case,' she added.
'And what about their afternoons off?' Mr Raunce enquired.
'What I always insist is that if you can't trust your girls,' Miss Burch replied, 'you might as soon give in your notice and go find yourself another place.' She turned to Edith. 'Now you never speak to none of the natives when you get outside?'
'Oh no Miss Burch,' they both replied, mum about Patrick with his fine set of teeth.
That's right,' Raunce told them. 'You can't be too careful. There's a war on,' he said.
'Are you in a draught?' Edith asked him tenderly. 'You don't want to take risks.' And Kate looked as though she might start a giggle any minute.
'There is a draught,' Raunce answered grave. There's a draught in every corner of this room which is a danger to sit in.'
'Move over to the other side then,' Miss Burch suggested.
'Thank you,' he said, 'but it's the same whichever side you are. I don't know,' he went on, 'but with them away now I feel responsible.'
'And what about the Jerries?' Kate put in suddenly. 'What if they come over tell me that?'
'Kate Armstrong,' Edith cried, 'why I asked you that selfsame question not so long since and you said they were ordinary working folk same as us so wouldn't offer no incivilities.'
'And I'm not saying they would,' Kate answered, 'not that sort and kind. But it might go hard for a young girl in the first week perhaps.'
'Mercy on us you don't want to talk like that,' Miss Burch said. 'You think of nothing but men, there's the trouble. Though if it did happen it would naturally be the same for the older women. They're famished like a lion out in the desert them fighting men,' she announced.
'For land's sake,' Edith began but Paddy started to mouth something. It was so seldom he spoke at meals that all listened.
'What's he say?' Raunce asked when the lampman was done.
'He reckons the I. R. A. would see to the Jerries,' Kate translated.
'Holy smoke but he'll be getting me annoyed in a minute. First he says there aren't none then 'e pretends they can sort out a panzer division. What with? Bows and arrows?'
Paddy muttered a bit.
'He says,' and Kate gave a laugh, 'they got more'n pikes like those Home Guard over at home.'
'If you can snigger at that you would laugh over anything my gel,' Raunce announced with signs of temper. 'Why you've only to go down in Kinalty and see yourself. Every other house burned right out. Once they got started they'd be so occupied fightin' each other they'd never notice Jerry was in the hamlet even.'
Paddy gave a great braying laugh.
'Laugh?' Raunce shouted and sprang up. All except for Miss Burch wilted and his lad's jaw dropped. 'You would would you?' he went on but the lampman had returned to wooden silence and Raunce subsided back into his seat again. 'Well,' he went on, 'if it should ever come to it there's guns and ammo in the gunroom.'