JULIANA’S CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY

New Zealand Tablet, 22 December 1910, Page 6 (Supplement)

JULIANA’S CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY

It was a pity in a way about Juliana Lynam, said the kindly neighbors, for the woman meant well. Her meaning well had resulted in making miserable the lives of some hall dozen people. There was first her brother-in-law, Felix McCarthy—perhaps he was not exactly her brother-in-law, for Marcella McCarthy, Felix's dead wife, had been only the step-sister of Juliana. There was his old mother, who was helpless with rheumatism in the lower limbs, who sat in her fireside corner knitting rapidly and listening with a kind of patient anguish to Juliana as she flounced hither and thither, scolding the children, harassing the servant, driving out the dogs, screaming at the hens, and generally making life hideous for everybody, while throwing out a hint— at all a dark one— and again about them who sat doing nothing and weren't worth the bread they ate. There were four small McCarthy's, whom Juliana was incessantly scolding and shaking when they got in her way. These, however, had learnt, as such oppressed things will, to keep out of Juliana's way, and once free of the house they contrived to be happy enough, forgetting their tyrant. There was another person whom Juliana fretted and worried, although she was not under the McCarthy roof, and that was a near neighbor, Nannie O'Keeffe. Now Nannie was a delightful creature, although she was no longer very young, and bright silver hairs were showing amid her nut-brown tresses. She was soft and laughing, tender and lovely, and changeful as the Irish skies. It was a thousand pities she should have been sacrificed to her brothers and grown into old-maidenhood. Not that Nannie would have accepted that point of view. She was tremendously proud and fond of her boys, who were now doing her credit in various honorable walks of life. If she was a bit lonely and empty-handed and hearted for them in the old farmhouse, where she was now alone after having reared them all, she made no complaint. Presently they would be sending their babies home to her. Meanwhile she had everybody's children within reach to love and to be loved by; best of all were Felix McCarthy's children, when only she could carry them off to Ballingarry for a little while. She had passionate impulses of pity too for Felix and for old Mrs. McCarthy; often the tears flashed in her eyes over them; and yet she was one of the first to say that it was a pity for Juliana, the creature; so it was, to be annoying herself and everybody else, seeing that she meant nothing but everybody's good. It was not always easy to get hold of the children, for Juliana had a somewhat unaccountable antipathy to Nannie O'Keeffe, whom the whole world loved. The children on their outings were forbidden to wander towards Ballingarry, where there was always a tender welcome awaiting them. If Nannie ran in to sit a while with the old granny in the chimney-corner, Juliana would make such a banging of pots and pans, such a hustling and driving and shrieking at the live-stock and the humans within reach, that the two could hardly hear each other speak; and after a fretted hour or so the old woman would make despairing signs to Nannie to be going, and Nannie would get up and go quietly away, often without the civility of a parting nod from Juliana. The old woman in the chimney-corner, who knew many things when Juliana would permit her to think, could have told Nannie O'Keeffe the cause of Juliana's antipathy. Juliana was jealous, or so the old woman thought. When Juliana had come swooping down on them after poor Marcella's death, and grasped all authority into her two hands, she might or might not have had an idea of consoling Felix in time. There was no reason against a man marrying his step-sister-in-law. But if she had any such idea she had set about the best way of defeating it. She had harassed poor Felix —a big, fair, handsome fellow, with a constitu- ; tional inability, it seemed, to hold his own against a woman dreadfully. He adored the children, and as devoted to the old mother. To see these helpless creatures oppressed had often almost brought him to the point of resisting Juliana. The thing that had kept him short of the point was the feeling that Juliana, according to her lights, was doing her best. It was because she did too much for him and his that she was ill-tempered and made the house a misery for them all. For Juliana had an unfortunate love of housewifery. It manifested itself in an incessant whirlwind of cleaning and tidying. She was afoot _at an unearthly hour in the morning, and spent her days in an incessant fatigue. None of them could live up to Juliana's standard of cleanliness. The children who dirtied their pinafores and muddied their boots, poor Felix who brought his pipe and his brogues into the newly-polished rooms, the old woman who required so much doing for her, the easy-going Irish servants, were at least as great a fret and worry to Juliana as she was to them. She had been pretty once, with a fair, sharp prettiness, bound to be spoilt in time by shrewdislmess. Marcella had been gentle and insipid, and had left little mark on her husband's life either in her presence or her departure. But in those latter years of Juliana's rule, Marcella shone a gentle saint by comparison ; and Juliana had lost all her prettiness through her incessant fretfulness.

There had been a time long ago, before Marcella was dreamt of, when Felix McCarthy, who was a friend and intimate of the O'Keeffe boys, had been head over ears in love with Nannie. He had spoken, or tried to speak, but Nannie was too much taken up with her boys to listen. How could she leave her boys, with so much to be done for them, to marry any one? Felix had perhaps been too easily repulsed. He had gone away and troubled Nannie no more with his suit; and presently, meeting Marcella Lynam, her kittenish prettiness and large, languishing eyes had put Nannie out of his mind for a brief foolish season, at the end of which he found himself married to Marcella and bound to make the best of it and think no more of Nannie. There were times when he sought refuge with the old friend who had never been his sweetheart, resting for a while in the peace of her kind, charming presence, in the quietness of her shabby, comfortable old house, where the fire always burnt brightly and there was an armchair by the hearth for a man to 101 lin while he smoked his pipe. Why, Nannie O'Keeffe's parlor was redolent of vanished masculine presences. The boys had lounged there as they would, and had desired nothing better. Looking about him, Felix McCarthy could recall Tom and Larry and Fergus and Hugh, who were far away, and Bryan, who was dead. What good days and nights those had been, when they were all boys together and brought their work and their play to Nannie's parlor, and were never rebuked for any of their slovenly, masculine ways. He was standing one wet December morning with his back to the fire in Nannie's parlor. Nannie sat and sewed at a tiny garment for Tom's first-born. Looking down at her bent head, with its neat division, Felix noticed for the first time how silvery Nannie's hair was becoming, although it still waved and curled as it had done in her girlhood. It was restful to see her sit and sew. She was wearing a little muslin apron with tiny scarlet bows on the shoulderstraps. It struck Felix that an apron like that was a pretty, comfortable, womanly thing, not a bit like Juliana's check overalls, that rustled wherever she went. Nannie's voice was rich and low. It matched the warm brown of

her complexion and her brown eyes. When she smiled at him, with a flash of white teeth, her eyes smiled too; little golden lights awoke in the depths of them and played there till the sweep of her heavy lashes covered them again. She had rather thick eyebrows, as is usual in the Irish beauty of her type. Juliana had thought them ungenteel. Felix wondered how anyone could object to them. Nannie was smiling now because they were planning, like a pair of conspirators, all sorts of merry things for Christmas. A most extraordinary thing had happened — a thing so bewilderingly strange and delightful that Felix had had to run across from the field, where he was supposed to be superintending farming operations, in order to spread the news to Nannie. Juliana had intimated her intention of spending the Christmas away from home. A genteel friend of hers, whom she had known up in Dublin before she came down to slaving for an ungrateful family, a Mrs. FinneganFlanagan—Juliana insisted on the double name— taking Juliana to spend the Christmas holidays in England, at a place which was described in the advertisements as being a nobleman's mansion in a splendid park of fifty acres. Riding, shooting, golfing, hunting, motoring, were to be among the out-door diversions. Dancing, theatricals, bridge tournaments, a Christmas tree, among the indoor ones. ' I have never had a holiday since the day I came to look after you, Felix,' Juliana had said, with the air of injury which conveyed that every one else's life was made up of holidays. ' I suppose you'll be able to get on without me?' only made aware of by Miss Lynam's glowering eye. He tried to make it up by a stammering speech to the effect that Juliana had earned a holiday if ever any one had but she was beyond propitiation. ' You seem well pleased to get rid of me,' she said with asperity. It would serve you right if I wasn't to come back to you at all. A nice way you'd be in then. As Mrs. Finnegan-Flanagan says, 'tis a great foolishness for me, so it is, to be slaving after your children when I might be enjoying myself; and me with a bit of money of my own, too.' . It was true that Juliana had a bit of money of her own ; and it had suffered no decrease during the years she had kept house for her brother-in-law. Indeed, it had seemed only in the justice of things to her that she should repay herself for all her hard work out of the money she administered; and she did not rate her own value too low, so that Felix was often puzzled to account for the discrepancy between the sums of money he gave out for the housekeeping and the rather scanty supplies of food and other things which Juliana provided. He went through the scene now for Nannie O'Keeffe with a leisurely humor, which was none the less delightful because it was somewhat rueful. ' Sure, God help her, the creature,' Nannie said. 1 Isn't she always wearing the life out of herself, all to no end? I'm sorry for her, so I am; but I don't know'— she said the words with a conscious deliberation—' but what I'm sorrier for you and the children, Felix, to say nothing

of your mother. It’s a pity she wouldn’t be staying away altogether.’ A little color came to her face as she said it; but Felix, stupid fellow, did not see it. ‘ Anyhow, we’ll have fine times this Christmas,’ he said. ‘ ’Twill be the good, old-fashioned Christmas we’ll be having. The children don’t know yet that she is going. What at all will we do to make them happy, Nannie?’ There’s many a thing we can do,’ said Nannie, the color ebbing away from her cheek. ‘ But, sure, God bless them ! they’re that lovable that they’d be happy enough with just you and me and the granny. ’Tis a pity they couldn’t be happy their own innocent way.’ A day or two before Juliana took her departure Felix had to leave home on business which would keep him away the better part of a week. He was a little alarmed about

When he had had a meal and time to wash his hands and face and change his clothes, he thought, he'd go to see Nannie. There were a number of parcels at the station waiting to be fetched across to his house, parcels containing the most wonderful things for the children, toys and sweets and games, such as were forbidden under Juliana's austere rule—a story-book apiece, a warm shawl and the stuff for a new dress for the old mother, a trifle for Nannie herself—weren't they old friends?—just a pretty old brooch picked up out of an antique shop, which he had felt would delight Nannie. She hadn't many to think of her now since the boys had left her. She was a very pretty woman still. Why shouldn't she have pretty things like the other women ? Within sight of his own door a sudden chill fell upon him. Where were the children? They were always used

how Juliana would take it, for she was a person apt to stand on her dignity, and it was likely that she would expect her brother-in-law's escort as far as Dublin. However, when he broke the news to her, accompanying it with a propitiatory offering of a five-pound note, Juliana was oddly gracious. She bid him not to be thinking about her. She would be quite safe in the train. Girls of her dignity of bearing would be safe anywhere. He might expect her back about the third week in January, well braced up in mind and body to take the direction of his troublesome household once more. He came home on the appointed day with an unwonted sense of exhilaration, and walked across the bog by a short cut to his house. The short December day was closing in with a cold light in the western sky, which was reflected in the pools of bog-water. He whistled as he walked briskly along. He was very glad to be coming home with Juliana away.

to see him from afar off and to troop out to meet him, forgetting to be sedate, despite Juliana’s scoldings. Now there came only Grip the terrier; and he walked mournfully, with a dejected tail that scarcely wagged. The stormy gleam in the sky fell lower, died out beyond the distant hills. The wind sprang up and sighed dismally. The house windows were dark. Not so much as a gleam of firelight in them. He had a sudden foreboding. It looked as though some one were dead in it. He hurried on. The half-door leading into the kitchen was open. There were plain signs of Juliana’s absence, for a brood of chickens clucked about the kitchen. The boldest of them were on the table, where some food lay, left apparently from the maid-servant’s midday meal. Except for the fowl the kitchen was empty, empty and disordered, only a few sparks showed in the grey ash on the hearth.

He went further on, opening the door to the parlor. The children must be out to tea. Why, of course, they were gone down to Nannie’s. And Biddy, the careless hussy, had slipped away to the village, leaving the old mother all alone.

Yes, there she was in the dark corner by the fire. Her face looked towards the door eagerly as he entered. He heard the click of her rosary-beads. The fire fell in and a little flame spurted up. There were tears on the old face.

‘Have the children left you by your lone self, mother?’ he said. ‘That worthless Bridget! Why, your fire is nearly out and you have no light.’ He leant forward and took the two old hands in his own, fondling them tenderly. ‘You’re quite cold, God help you!’ he said. ' They’re bad little children, so they are, to leave you by yourself. _ Is it gone over to Nannie’s they are?’ To his surprise the old woman began to sobsomewhat to his alarm, too. What did it mean? Surely nothing could have happened to the children! ‘Whist, mother,’ he said, ‘you’re frightening me. Where are the boys and the (jirsha? ‘ They’re far enough away, Felix. I told her you wouldn’t like it, that it ’ml be the lonely house you’d come home to. Sure, I’ve been that low-spirited since they went that I didn’t mind what that girl Bridget did. She’s been in and out like a dog at a fair ever since. Och, the desolation of it!’

A wild idea .suggested itself to him. ‘ It isn’t likely Juliana would be taking them with her?’ he said slowly. ‘ She was never one for children.’ ‘ Not she,’ said the old woman shrilly. ‘ She’s put them all to school. ’Tis in the convent in Dublin they are- -a hundred miles from you and me. I was to tell yen she considered it was for the best. ’’Pis running wild they’d have been without her. She’s had it in her mind for some time. Sure, she always had her own way with you.

He did not hear the implied reproach. He was moved to anger at last; and it shook him as a big wind shakes a tree.

‘My children!’ he said. ‘My children! That woman ’

And then, perhaps fortunately, he was inarticulate. Bridget, coming in a little later, found the master with a sterner mood upon him than she had imagined possible. He had made up the fire and lit the lamp, and was searching about for the materials to make his old mother a cup of tea.

He swept Bridget off her feet with the whirlwind of his wrath, thereby exciting in her an admiration and attachment which his gentleness had never provoked. When he had reduced her to an abject humility he handed her over the teapot, and, forgetting that he himself had not eaten, walked out of the house. lie knew what he was going to do, although as yet he could barely collect his thoughts. Fie was going to fetch the children back to-morrow, and he was going to break Juliana’s rule. She had gone too far this time; and her reign was at an end forever. Mechanically his feet took the way to Ballingarry. The storm had got up and the wind was shrieking about him as he walked, but he was hardly conscious of it. A few drops of rain fell, the precursors of a wet night. He was within a few yards of the white wall with green palings a-top, behind which the long white house under its thatch stood prettily surrounded by a garden. An outside car met him coining from the opposite direction. The light of the lamps flashed on his face and the driver of the car pulled up. It was Father Tom, the parish priest. ‘ I hear the children are gone to school, Felix,’ he said. Wasn’t it very sudden? And they so little! Surely you could have kept Nora and Body at home? I’m not saying a word against the nuns up in Dublin, but we’ve a very good convent school of our own.’ His voice was slightly offended. Father Tom expected to be consulted in the affairs of his parishioners, and this sending the children to school particularly affected him. Felix came forward and laid his hand on the rug that covered Father Tom’s knees. His hand yet trembled with the passion that had swept him. ‘’Tis the cold, unnatural father you must think me’ he said to be ready to do without them. Let alone that it would break my old mother’s heart. It was that woman, Juliana.’ He spoke the name as though he could hardly endure it. ‘lf I was to let myself go, Father Tom maybe you d rather not be hearing me. Sure, I’ve been a poor fool all these years, and no wonder the ’woman despised me. Tisn’t the children will go out of it but Juliana Lynarn. I’m going to Dublin by the night mail.’ Quite right, quite right!’ said Father Tom heartily. ‘ Juliana took too much on herself, a great deal too much They’re but small to be outside the four walls of their father’s house. Where would they be but in it? The old granny’s terribly fond of them', God help her I ’Tis a pity now they couldn’t be having a. mother instead of Juliana.’

He looked slyly at Felix’s agitated face, on which the lamp cast its lights and shadows. ‘You were going to tell Nannie about it?’ he said in a voice which he tried in vain to rob of any suggestion.

Quite right, too. Nannie’!! console you. She’s a good girl is Nannie, God bless her! ’Tis a shame she shouldn’t be making some man happy. She’s thrown away at Ballingarry, by her lone self, so she is.’ Felix looked up at him suddenly, and a wild surmise dawned in his eyes. It was as though he were looking on new heavens and a new earth.

Bather Tom laughed gently to himself, then touched up the horse. ‘ Well, good-night, Felix’; he said, and good luck! I’ll look in to-morrow evening to see if the children are any the worse for their travels. You’ll bo home with them by five o’clock.’ After he had driven away, Felix McCarthy stood for at least three minutes staring into the light that was Hooding all his sold and all his life. Was it possible that Nannie should be his, after all, for the asking? Nannie, who, he realised all at once, was the one woman for him, had always been the one woman for him ! No wonder he was blinded by the sudden light. He came in on Nannie a few minutes later, Nannie, warm and sweet in firelight, just sitting down to her tea. She looked up at him as he came in, and there was a smouldering fire in her eye for which he loved her none the less.

You didn’t know about it?’ she said. ‘Juliana said you knew. They were crying fit to break their hearts as they went, I know they nearly broke mine. I went down to see them, whether Juliana liked it or not. Will you let me take the granny over here? ’Twill be the sad Christmas for her.’

Felix advanced a step or two to where she stood on the hearth-rug. All the fury seemed to have died down in him in the happy peace of her presence. He bowed his head till it rested on her shoulder, and said very gently: Don’t leave us to Juliana any more, Nannie. Sure we all want you — the old mother and the children and 1. ’Tis the wretched life she’s led us.’

‘ I thought you’d never ask me, Felix,’ she said in a whisper at his ear; and he felt the sudden glowing of her as though he held a rose in his arms. Juliana came home earlier than was expected. She had quarrelled with Mrs. Finnegan-Flanagan, and she was extremely annoyed at the non-receipt of letters from home; besides which, the nobleman’s mansion had proved a delusion and a snare, and Juliana was heartily glad to get out of it. She returned unannounced, nursing her wrath to keep it warm, and quite unsuspicious as the mail train flashed by her somewhere between Holyhead and Chester that it was carrying a letter which would have made her return to Kilmore quite unnecessary. She was driven from the station by Andy Dnmphy, the most taciturn of his kind, and your Irish carman is abnormally taciturn by nature, only coming out of his shell unwillingly to entertain the stranger who expects it of him. Andy sat, a wooden image of taciturnity, on the side of the car, parted from Miss Lynarn by her stack of luggage. It was no use asking him questions. Juliana was unpopular with the poorer neighbors. Her lips tightened as she sent Andy a thought. There would be a tussle presently over the fare. Juliana always disputed payments. However, for once Andy said nothing as she tossed him a coin. He had driven her straight into the farmyard instead of approaching the house by the hall-door way. The kitchen was lit up brightly. There was a roaring fire. It was still well within Twelfth Night; and the holly and ivy were yet up. A piece of beef was turning round on the spit before the fire. A strange girl, in a neat cap and apron, was in the kitchen.

Juliana stood and stared. It gave Andy Dumpily an opportunity to whisk down her trunk with a willingness he had not often shown in her service. He had it on his shoulder and was following her as she lifted the latch of the parlor door. Andy was able to tell it all afterwards, discarding his taciturnity for the occasion. Juliana had whisked into the parlor to demand the reason for these extraordinary happenings, and Andy was close on her heels and had ‘set down her trunk at the foot of the staircase which led from the parlor to the bedrooms above. What Juliana had intended to say can only be guessed at, for what she saw struck her dumb. The round table was set for a meal, with a white cloth upon it, highly polished glasses and silver, flowers and fruit as a centre piece, and the hanging lamp above it swathed in a perfect forest of holly with its scarlet berries. There was a roaring fire. In the chimney-corner sat the old granny furbished up incredibly, and looking as blessed an old lady os could well be imagined.

The four children, who ought by rights to have been at school in Dublin, were sprawling bn the hearthrug playmg with their toys and with Grip, the Irish terrier who was never allowed into the house under Juliana’s reign Recognising her, Grip wagged his tail deprecatingly and looked all manner of apologies for being alive. -.r _ ln l , tho midst of the group, side by side, sat Felix McCarthy and Nannie O’Keeffe. There was an unmistakably gala air about them. Nannie was wearin°* a dress of a soft lavender color which became her amazingly They sat hand in hand. So sudden was Juliana’s en-

trance that they still sat in that lover-like attitude for fully thirty seconds under her unfriendly eyes. At last she found words. all these years I’ve slaved, doing my best for my sister’s children. Why are they here and not at their good school ?’ Felix stood up, putting Nannie away from him with a tender gentleness, and stood between her and Juliana, as though he would intercept Juliana’s wrath. ‘ Indeed you meant well, Juliana,’ he said in his deliberate, gentle voice. ‘ But it wasn’t always as good as you meant it to be. I’ve written to you. I suppose you didn’t get the letter. You’re very welcome to stay a bit, if you’re disposed to be friendly. You see, Nannie

' I hope you've had a pleasant holiday,' went on Felix, a very pleasant holiday, Juliana. You'll take off your bonnet and have a bit with us? Andy'll be taking up your boxes.' Andy advanced a step or two, but "Juliana turned round upon him. ! 'Stay where you are, man!' she said furiously. Then she made an ironical bow to Felix McCarthy. ' I've had a very pleasant holiday, thank you,' she said. After all my slavery for you ! It's going to be all holidays with me from this minute. Andy Dumphy, take back my boxes to the car.' 'Sure, where would you be going to, Juliana?' her brother-in-law asked amicably. ' There isn't a train out

and I were married last Wednesday. We’ve just come back from a bit of a honeymoon. It might have been longer if we could have made ourselves happy away from the old mother and the children. I took the children away from school, Juliana. It was well-meant, but how could you think- we’d be happy without them?’ Juliana put her hand once or twice to her throat while her brother-in-law made his leisurely speech. She looked around the room, bright as it had never been in her time, with all the good things in use, the linen and the glass and the silver, which she had kept jealously locked up. They had all seemed amazingly happy when she had broken in upon them. Now they sat with a little cloud of consternation on their happiness, for the moment, because she was there and furious,

of here till ten o'clock. Sit down, woman, and eat a bit before you go.' 'You poor creature V responded Juliana; and having hurled that shaft she flung open the parlor door and stalked forth majestically, never to return. ' I'm not sure but what she was right,' Felix said when the sound of the car-wheels had died in the distance and the children had begun to play again. ' 'Twas the poor creature I was to be putting up with her so long. I wonder you ever looked at me, asthoreen.' He slid his arm about his wife's yet slender waist and pressed his lips on her hair, while the old mother gazed at them with a smile like a benediction. ' Sure 'twas a pity,' said Mrs. Felix characteristically, ' the creature having her holiday spoilt. ''—Catholic World.