The Search Party. George A. Birmingham
may say that. I’d sooner she married the doctor than me, and that’s the truth.”
“What’ll she do now,” said Patsy, “when she finds that the doctor’s gone and left her?”
“It’ll be best,” said Jimmy, “if we keep it from her.”
“How can you keep it from her when the man’s gone? Won’t she be asking to see him?”
“There’s ways of doing things. What would you say now if I was to tell her that the doctor had gone off on a holiday for six weeks with the permission of the Board of Guardians and that there’d have to be a substitute appointed in his place? Would she be contented with that, do you think?”
“She might,” said Patsy, “but she might not. She’d be wanting his address anyway.”
“If she wanted it, it would be mighty hard to keep it from the like of that one.”
“You haven’t got it to give, and so you can’t give it,” said Patsy.
Miss Blow came downstairs as he spoke and walked up to Jimmy O’Loughlin.
“Will you kindly have some luncheon ready for me,” she said, “at two o’clock?”
“Certainly, miss, why not? Is there any particular thing that your ladyship would fancy, such as a chop or the like?”
He reverted to the “ladyship” again, although he knew her name and degree. The girl’s manner seemed to force him to. She deserved something better than a mere “miss.”
“In the meanwhile will you be so good as to tell me where Dr. O’Grady lives?”
“Is it Dr. O’Grady? Well, now, never a nicer gentleman there is about the place, nor one that’s more thought of, or better liked than Dr. O’Grady. It’s him that does be taking his dinner up at the Castle with the old lord and attending to his duties to the poor the same as if he was one of themselves. Many’s the time I’ve said to him: ‘Dr O’Grady,’ says I, ‘if anything was to take you away out of Clonmore, and I don’t deny but what you ought to be in a less backward place, but if ever—— ’”
“Will you be so good as to tell me where he lives?” said Miss Blow.
Patsy Devlin interposed at this point of the conversation with an air of contempt for Jimmy O’Loughlin.
“Can’t you stop your talking,” he said, “and tell the lady where the doctor lives?”
Jimmy cast a venomous glance at him.
“I will tell your ladyship to be sure. Why not? But it will be of no use for you to go to call on him to-day. Patsy Devlin here is after telling me this minute that he’s not at home.”
Miss Blow turned to Patsy.
“Do you know,” she asked, “when he’s likely to be back?”
“I do not, my lady. But I’d say it wouldn’t be for a couple of days anyway.”
“A couple of days! Where has he gone to?”
“It’s what Mr. O’Loughlin there was just after telling me, your ladyship, and he’s the Chairman of the Board of Guardians, that the doctor did ask for leave to go on a holiday. But I wouldn’t say that he’d be away for very long.”
“When did he ask for a holiday?” said Miss Blow to Jimmy O’Loughlin.
“It was Patsy Devlin told me,” said Jimmy; “and six weeks was the time that he mentioned.”
Miss Blow turned again to Patsy Devlin; but he had vanished. Having committed Jimmy O’Loughlin, as Chairman of the Board of Guardians, to the fact of the doctor’s holiday, he slipped quietly into the bar.
“I don’t believe,” said Miss Blow, “that you’re telling me the truth.”
“He was not,” said Jimmy, sacrificing his friend with the utmost promptitude. “It’s seldom he does that same. Devil the bigger liar, begging your ladyship’s pardon for the word, devil the bigger liar there is in Connacht than that same Patsy Devlin, and it’s what every one that knows him would tell you.”
“I don’t,” said Miss Blow severely, “see very much to choose between you and him.”
In England people have a great regard for the truth so long as it does not interfere with business. Miss Blow expressed her scorn for the two men who had tried to deceive her quite plainly both by her words and the tone in which she spoke them. In Connacht truth is less respected. Good manners and consideration for other people’s feelings are looked upon as virtues superior to blunt accuracy of statement. Jimmy O’Loughlin lied feebly, but he lied with the best intentions. He wanted to spare Miss Blow the knowledge that her lover had deserted her. In return she insulted him; but even under the sting of her words he recollected that courtesy is due to every lady, especially to one as good-looking as Miss Blow. It was not until she had turned her back on him and left the hotel that he murmured under his breath—
“May the Lord help the poor doctor if it ever comes to his being married by the like of her!”
CHAPTER V
Miss Blow came back for her luncheon, and then, asking no more help or advice from Jimmy O’Loughlin, went out and made her way to Dr. O’Grady’s house. It stood a few hundred yards from the village in the middle of a small field. Miss Blow knocked and rang at the door, though she had no real expectation of its being opened to her. She walked round the house and peered in at the windows. The rooms on the ground floor showed every sign of having been recently occupied by a person of untidy habits. She reached the yard, surveyed the coach house and the stable which had once sheltered a good horse. She tried the kitchen door and found it bolted against her. The kitchen had a disused and neglected appearance which puzzled her. She returned to the front of the house and sat down on a stone to think out the position in which she found herself.
Patsy Devlin, who had followed her from the hotel, watched her proceedings from a distance with great interest. He afterwards made a report to Jimmy O’Loughlin, a masterly report which interpreted her actions, and added a picturesque touch at the end. Patsy Devlin would have written good histories if fortune had made him a university professor instead of a blacksmith.
“You’d have been sorry for the creature,” he said, “if you’d seen her sitting there on a lump of a stone with the tears running down the two cheeks of her the same as if you were after beating her with a stick.”
“I am sorry for her,” said Jimmy. “It’s herself has her own share of trouble before her when she finds out that the doctor’s off to America without so much as leaving word for her to go after him.”
It did not seem likely that Miss Blow would easily arrive at a knowledge of the full extent of her misery. Biddy Halloran, the rheumatic old lady who had waited long on the roadside for the doctor in the morning, was still lurking near the house when Miss Blow reached it. She, like Patsy Devlin, watched the examination of the premises with deep interest. When Miss Blow sat down on the stone, Biddy Halloran hobbled up to her.
“Is it the doctor you’re looking for?” she said. “For if it is, it’s hardly ever you’ll see him again.”
Miss Blow was startled, and demanded an explanation of the words. Biddy, who was slightly deaf, pretended to be very deaf indeed. Miss Blow’s clear voice and determination of manner subdued her in the end. She professed to be the only person in Clonmore who really knew what had happened to the doctor.
“Holidays, is it?” she said, recollecting what Patsy Devlin had told her, “no, nor work either. It’s to Dublin he’s gone, and it’s little pleasure he’ll find there. Och, but he was a fine man and it’s a pity of him!”
“Tell