Lady Bountiful. George A. Birmingham
or curious in the papers, he read it out to her. But she very seldom listened. Her strong common sense saved her from taking any interest in the war while it lasted, the peace, when it was discussed, or politics, which gurgle on through war and peace alike.
With the care of a great house, a garden, and eighty acres of land on her shoulders, she had no mental energy to spare for public affairs of any kind. Between half-past ten and eleven Sir Tony went to bed. He was an old gentleman of regular habits, and by that time the whisky-decanter was always empty. Lady Cor-less helped him upstairs, saw to it that his fire was burning and his pyjamas warm. She dealt with buttons and collar-studs, which are sometimes troublesome to old gentlemen who have drunk port at dinner and whisky afterwards. She wound his watch for him, and left him warm and sleeping comfortably.
One evening Sir Tony read from an English paper a paragraph which caught Lady Corless’ attention. It was an account of the means by which the Government hoped to mitigate the evils of the unemployment likely to follow demobilisation and the closing of munition works. An out-of-work benefit of twenty-five shillings a week struck her as a capital thing, likely to become very popular. For the first time in her life she became slightly interested in politics.
Sir Tony passed from that paragraph to another, which dealt with the future of Dantzig. Lady Corless at once stopped listening to what he read. She went on knitting her stocking; but instead of letting her thoughts work on the problems of the eggs laid by her hens, and the fish for Sir Tony’s dinner the next day, she turned over in her mind the astonishing news that the Government actually proposed to pay people, and to pay them well, for not working. The thing struck her as too good to be true, and she suspected that there must be some saving clause, some hidden trap which would destroy the value of the whole scheme.
After she had put Sir Tony to bed she went back to the smoking-room and opened the paper from which the news had been read. It took her some time to find the paragraph. Her search was rendered difficult by the fact that the editor, much interested, apparently, in a subject called the League of Nations, had tucked this really important piece of news into a corner of a back page. In the end, when she discovered what she wanted, she was not much better off. The print was small. The words were long and of a very unusual kind. Lady Corless could not satisfy herself about their meaning. She folded the paper up and put it safely into a drawer in the kitchen dresser before she went to bed.
Next day, rising early, as she always did, she fed her fowls and set the morning’s milk in the dairy. She got Sir Tony’s breakfast ready at nine o’clock and took it up to him. She saw to it that Danny, who was inclined to be lazy, was in his pantry polishing silver. She made it clear to Sarah, Susy, and Molly that she really meant the library to be thoroughly cleaned. It was a room which was never occupied, and the three girls saw no sense in sweeping the floor and dusting the backs of several thousand books. But their sister was firm and they had learnt to obey her.
Without troubling to put on a hat or to take off her working apron, Lady Corless got on her bicycle and rode down to her father’s forge. She had in her pocket the newspaper which contained the important paragraph.
Old Malone laid aside a cart-wheel to which he was fitting a new rim and followed his daughter into the house. He was much better educated than she was and had been for many years a keen and active politician. He took in the meaning of the paragraph at once.
“Gosh!” he said. “If that’s true—and I’m not saying it is true; but, if it is, it’s the best yet. It’s what’s been wanted in Ireland this long time.”
He read the paragraph through again, slowly and carefully.
“Didn’t I tell you?” he said, “didn’t I tell everyone when the election was on, that the Sinn Feiners was the lads to do the trick for us? Didn’t I say that without we’d get a republic in Ireland the country would do no good? And there’s the proof of it.”
He slapped the paper heartily with his hand. To Lady Corless, whose mind was working rapidly, his reasoning seemed a little inconclusive. It even struck her that an Irish republic, had such a thing really come into being, might not have been able to offer the citizens the glorious chance of a weekly pension of twenty-five shillings. But she was aware that politics is a complex business in which she was not trained. She said nothing. Her father explained his line of thought.
“If them fellows over in England,” he said, “weren’t terrible frightened of the Sinn Feiners, would they be offering us the likes of that to keep us quiet? Bedamn, but they would not. Nobody ever got a penny out of an Englishman yet, without he’d frightened him first. And it’s the Sinn Feiners done that. There’s the why and the wherefore of it to you. Twenty-five shillings a week! It ought to be thirty shillings, so it ought. But sure, twenty-five shillings is something, and I’d be in favour of taking it, so I would. Let the people of Ireland take it, I say, as an instalment of what’s due to them, and what they’ll get in the latter end, please God!”
“Can you make out how a man’s to get it?” said Lady Corless.
“Man!” said old Malone. “Man! No, but man and woman. There isn’t a girl in the country, let alone a boy, but what’s entitled to it, and I’d like to see the police or anyone else interfering with them getting it.”
“Will it be paid out of the post office like the Old Age Pensions?” said Lady Corless.
“I don’t know will it,” said her father, “but that way or some other way it’s bound to be paid, and all anyone has to do is to go over to what they call the Labour Exchange, at Dunbeg, and say there’s no work for him where he lives. Then he’ll get the money. It’s what the young fellow in that office is there for, is to give the money, and by damn if he doesn’t do it there’ll be more heard about the matter!”
Old Malone, anxious to spread the good news, left the room and walked down to the public house at the corner of the village street. Lady Corless went into the kitchen and found her three youngest sisters drinking tea. They sat on low stools before the fire and had a black teapot with a broken spout standing on the hearth at their feet. The tea in the pot was very black and strong. Lady Corless addressed them solemnly.
“Katey-Ann,” she said, “listen to me now, and let you be listening too, Onnie, and let Honoria stop scratching her head and attend to what I’m saying to the whole of you. I’m taking you on up at the big house as upper house-maid, Katey-Ann.”
“And what’s come over Sarah,” said Katey-Ann. “Is she going to be married?”
“Never mind you about Sarah,” said Lady Corless, “but attend to me. You’re the under-housemaid, Onnie, so you are, in place of your sister Susy, and Honoria here is kitchen-maid. If anyone comes asking you questions that’s what you are and that’s what you’re to say. Do you understand me now? But mind this. I don’t want you up at the house, ne’er a one of you. You’ll stay where you are and you’ll do what you’re doing, looking after your father and drinking tea, the same as before, only your wages will be paid regular to you. Where’s Thady?”
Thady Malone was the youngest of the family.
Since Dan became butler at Castle Affey, Thady had given his father such help as he could at the forge. Lady Corless found him seated beside the bellows smoking a cigarette. His red hair was a tangled shock. His face and hands were extraordinarily dirty. He was enjoying a leisure hour or two while his father was at the public house. To his amazement he found himself engaged as butler and valet to Sir Tony Corless of Castle Affey.
“But you’ll not be coming up to the house,” said Lady Corless, “neither by day nor night. Mind that. I’d be ashamed for anyone to see you, so I would, for if you washed your face for the Christmas it’s the last time you did it.”
That afternoon, after Sir Tony’s luncheon had been served, Danny, Sarah, Susy and Molly were formally dismissed. Their insurance cards were stamped and their wages were paid up to date. It was explained to them at some length, with many repetitions but quite clearly, that though dismissed they were to continue to do their work as before. The only difference in their position was that their