Loving

'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.'

Edith gave a cry and Kate looked serious. But Miss Burch displayed impatience.

'Whatever's come over you?' she asked. 'You're never thinking you could knock down one of the Mark something tanks as you would a rabbit with one of those shot guns they've got locked up here,' she said.

'What I had in mind was a cartridge each for you ladies,' he replied in a low voice. Utterly serious he was.

'Would you spare one for Mrs Welch?' Miss Burch enquired tart and Kate let out a yell of laughter. Edith laughed also and after a minute Raunce himself joined in shamefaced. Paddy stayed impassive.

'You want to go delicate you know,' Miss Burch went on, 'you've no game licence.'

'You mean you wouldn't hesitate…?' Edith began to ask him seriously but Charley interrupted her.

'I'd like to see 'em up in Dublin issue a permit over Mrs Welch as they do with the salmon trout,' he said to Miss Burch. At this they all laughed once more when Kate broke in with, 'Speakin' for myself I'd rather have the Jerry.'

'Under 'er bed,' Raunce made comment and even Miss Burch tee-hee'd wholehearted.

There's the telephone,' Raunce announced. Bert got up to answer it away in the pantry.

Miss Burch fixed a stern eye on Kate so much as to say a minute or so ago just now you were about to be actually coarse.

'Well I don't aim to be shot dead. On no account I don't.' the girl explained.

There's worse things than death my girl,' Miss Burch repeated. 'As anyone can tell you who remembers the last war.'

'I saw in the papers they behave themselves most correct towards the French people,' Edith said, still looking at Charley.

'What can you believe in these Irish rags?' Raunce asked.

'Well, there's one thing,' Miss Burch told him, 'they're neutral enough, they print what both sides say against one another.'

'Ah,' said Raunce, 'that's nothing but propaganda these days. It's human nature you've got to keep count of. Why it stands to reason with an invadin' army…' he was going on as Edith watched him open eyed when Albert came back.

'It was a wire for you,' he said to Raunce.

'Where is it then?' this man asked.

'Well there ain't no telegram,' was the answer he got. They read it out over the phone.'

'Ow many times have I told you never to take nothin' over that instrument without you write it down,' Raunce demanded in rising tones. 'Why I remember once at a place I was in, that very thing occasioned the death of a certain Mrs Harris. There you are. Killed her it did as if she had been blown in smithereens with a shotgun.'

'Go on,' the boy said respectful.

'Don't give me no go ons,' Raunce almost shouted at him. 'D'you know what you're about?'