All the Spangled Host Read online

  All the Spangled Host

  John A. Ryan

  THE LILLIPUT PRESS

  DUBLIN

  Contents

  Mary of the Angels

  The Heel of the Hunt

  Chapel Street

  The Long Consequences

  Men of the World

  A Wild Goose

  Oriental Thomastown

  The Dunes

  Dawn on the Boyne: Brú na Bóinne

  Colkitto’s Tooth

  Gallia Est

  Ebbed Seas

  Rich

  Flight

  All the Spangled Host

  Long Odds

  A Night Bird

  Reinforcements

  Remembering Derrynane

  Siar Amach

  Growing Up

  Notes and Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Mary of the Angels

  In the sunny porch, Sister Agnes was watering the blue cinerarias, while Sister Colette trotted after her, chattering. The two old nuns, engrossed in their conversation, did not even glance at Sister Mary of the Angels as she hurried past. She caught a phrase or two: ‘The boys adore him … Quite extraordinary … Just because he’s an athlete … physical …’

  Old gossips, she thought as she opened the door.

  There was no need to ask who the athlete was; everyone in this small town seemed to be talking about the newcomer. Angels remembered things she had overheard in class: ‘Did you see him in yesterday’s paper?’ ‘He’s on the Munster team, too.’ ‘I saw him playing football with the boys.’ She recalled the envious squeals of the other girls on the morning when Lily Grant, with smug triumph, showed them his signature in her autograph album. Fr Landers, when he came visiting to the convent, spoke constantly about ‘our new teacher’, and seemed to think he had done something wonderful in appointing the young man as assistant in the boys’ school. As though, Angels reflected, being a good footballer was more important than being a good teacher. Maybe to a Kerryman it was.

  She went out and along the path beside the grass. ‘Physical?’ No. She didn’t think so. Hero-worship was not a physical thing. Rather it was almost a religious feeling; it was the yearning that was in every heart for the ideal.

  The path brought her to the high stone wall with its wooden door, the top of which curved to a point. She lifted her hand to the latch and then stopped and turned to look back at the quiet garden she had just walked through without seeing. A smooth lawn that lifted and curved, a seat in the shelter of the trees, birches and yellow daffodils. ‘Sister Agnes’s garden,’ so Reverend Mother said. ‘A triumph of patience and imagination.’ Long before Angels was professed, even before she came here as a boarder, Agnes was working on this, and every stone so patiently removed, every bucketful of soil so laboriously carried there (‘It was once a farmyard, you know’), all was Agnes’ work. A very patient and gifted old lady. ‘And not,’ Angels rebuked herself, ‘not an old gossip.’

  She opened the door and went out into the paved area in front of the church. The senior girls, instead of going into the church, were standing in groups. There was a suggestion of pointing … it was only their eyes … and she heard clearly, ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ She looked quickly. A tall lithe figure, fair-haired, was leading the boys in by the church-gate. She should not have looked, she dragged her eyes away. ‘Come along, girls,’ she said, confused, the small guilt making her voice sharp. There was some sniggering and she thought she heard, ‘… just suit Angels.’ Upset by their behaviour and further upset because she knew she was blushing and that they might notice, she rounded them up and marched them through the gloom of the porch and they clattered noisily to their places. How graceless they can be at that age, she thought, and then she smiled a little when she remembered that she herself was not much older.

  She stood under the organ-loft, her gloved hands on the top of the pew before her. There was no hurry really, it was not eleven yet and she would wait here until she had regained her composure.

  Old Mr Malone came in. He would soon be retiring, and then she supposed the young footballer would replace him. He smiled at her vaguely, and she was sure that he had no idea who she was or what her name was, though he had been meeting her now for the past two years.

  But Mr Malone, as he went down the side-aisle, thought briefly: ‘Mary of the Angels. What a lovely name. And what an odd, remote little girl she is. They join at sixteen or seventeen or so, and from then on the personality atrophies, like a half-opened flower touched by frost.’ Then his thoughts went back to the problem that had been worrying him, this new young man who had so captured the imagination of the children but who was so impatient in the classroom and was already in trouble for striking one of his pupils in a fit of temper.

  Angels watched the boys filing in. Didn’t they move so much better than girls? Was it their build, or because they played games, or was it self-consciousness on the girls’ part? They settled into their places and even their animal spirits seemed to be subdued by the quiet and peace of the church. One hoped it was due to reverence and religious feeling.

  The church clock struck eleven. At this time on the first Thursday of every month the children of both schools came to confession. It was a peaceful hour, a complete contrast to schoolwork. The church seemed to her to absorb all these people and impose on them its own stillness, its own character of prayer and devotion. Sunshine slanted dustily from the high windows, bringing muted rich colours to the floor. Even the sounds, she thought, had a quality of remoteness so that they hardly disturbed the silence: whispers; a shoe knocking against timber; the strange clicking noise made by the weights and chains of the church clock that always made her think of coins falling into a metal bowl. Mr Malone and Fr Landers were having an earnest unheard talk near the pulpit, the headmaster gesturing with his hands, Fr Landers listening with his head bent and turned to one side. They seemed miles away, like figures on a far-off horizon. Beyond the bright and dusty curtains of sunlight, she could just make out the gleam of brass on the altar and the floppy heads of white chrysanths.

  Someone had stopped beside her. Without looking, she knew who it was. She felt rather than saw the height and bulk of him, and looking down she saw the powerful fingers splayed on the pew-top. Fascinated, she could not take her eyes away. She could see the hairs quite clearly. Short golden hairs. They made the hands somehow terribly male. Quickly she snatched up her own hands. Now he turned to look back and his arm touched hers. She felt the heaviness of his shoulder touch the slimness of hers. Her heart thumped. What was the matter with her? She must go down to the front of the church – but to do that she would have to go around him. She stayed where she was, her breath coming quickly, and she felt the blood flooding her cheeks.

  Her prayer-book! Yes! Her fingers trembled as she opened it. Prayer before a crucifix … Prayer against temptation … The little book fell to the floor and as she stooped, quickly and in great confusion, to retrieve it, he leant down in one cat-smooth movement, she stumbled, then he was holding her elbow and handing back her book and she saw the blue eyes and heard the murmur of his voice. Thank you she tried to say and failed and turned and found her way out into the dim coolness of the porch, her face on fire, the hammering of her heart hurting, the great sunny doorway of the church before her now. She turned from it and ran in the open doorway of the choir-loft and fell panting against the curving stair, her forehead against the cold metal … O Blessed Michael who with flaming sword didn’t guard the gates of paradise … And as her heart slowed again her tears began to fall.

  The Heel of the Hunt

 
‘Batty dear,’ said Lady Catherine, ‘you will have a little drink, won’t you?’

  He slipped an arm around her waist and ran with her up the steps. In the doorway he stopped and put a big hand on each of her hips and grinned at her. She noticed that he smelt pleasantly of horses.

  ‘Tiddy, it’s no wonder that Sam is fond of you,’ he said. ‘You know exactly what a man needs.’ He grinned again. ‘Come in here behind the door with me –’

  She escaped from him, laughing, a bit out of breath, and she was thinking not for the first time of the paradox that was Batty Harrington: a fine big man, any girl’s fancy, and a charmer too when he liked, and yet the worst marriage risk in Ireland. She thought of Maggie then, and that made her sigh, not for Maggie of course but for Batty.

  Her husband was placidly handing out drinks to the early-comers.

  ‘A little something for Batty, Sam.’

  Sam poured out a large Paddy and handed it across the table.

  ‘I’m glad you came, Batty,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see you. Are you going to Punchestown?’

  ‘Of course I’m going to Punchestown. I’ll ask Bord Bainne to milk the cows.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll send Peter Redmond over to do your cows, and the two young fellows can manage here. I suppose Wigeon will be able to come?’

  ‘Is he not here?’ asked Batty, and a little cloud that had been on the fringe of his consciousness grew just a little bigger and darker.

  ‘No. Hasn’t come yet,’ Sam replied, and then maybe realizing that Batty was disappointed, he added, ‘Won’t be much good to us today with that damaged wing, but he’ll surely put in an appearance later on.’

  The meet at Coolgard House was notorious for being late in moving off. Sam Wilson loved hunting but he was incurably hospitable and this always delayed the start. It suited Batty, because Skoury wasn’t able for a long day of it, not under Batty’s weight. Today, however, things started early, probably due to the efforts of their new joint-master.

  The day was cold, cloudy and dry. The wind was from the east. The horses’ breath steamed as they moved down the drive. Well, a good hunting day, at any rate. Wigeon hadn’t come, but with an arm in a sling, why should he? He’d probably be at Coolgard when they got back and they could have a jar together. Batty sniffed that keen air and shivered, and it was not because of the cold, but the old primeval excitement and expectancy that never failed, never had failed in twenty years or more. He looked around and found Robin McCormick close behind him. ‘Morrow, Robin. Good class of a day.’

  ‘’Tis a good day, Bat, however long ’twill last. ’Twill snow before night. And I don’t like that one bit. Have you any hay you could sell me?’

  ‘I’ll tell you that on Patrick’s Day,’ and he looked at the grey sky and started mentally counting bales.

  Out ahead, Tim Kelly was swearing fluently at his hounds, his blue-jowled head pushed well up into a bowler, while towards the rear of the hunt, sure enough, there was the new joint-master, Mrs Ruth Knatchbull, all the way from Pennsylvania. MFH. Mistress of Foxhounds. She was egging somebody on. She was an enthusiastic egger-on. What a face! What a moustache! Yoicks!

  He began to think he shouldn’t have had that last Paddy, but it was because he’d had to drink it off in a hurry. These Americans had no idea of the value of time. These cursagod ditches! They sound all right in lyrical things that you read in Horse and Hound. The Quorn. The misty morn and all that. The Quorn, the Quorn, the lusty Quorn. One of these days he’d be found dead in one of these gripes. A glorious death, but wet and uncomfortable.

  They were taking the same route they had taken on that Stephen’s Day, when was it? A year ago? Two? The day he had grounded Sarah in Hearne’s barn. Yoicks! He snorted with laughter. The horn, the horn, the lusty horn!

  And there it was now, as Kelly blew his hounds out of the home covert, which in courtesy they had to draw but which wasn’t worth wasting much time on.

  He found old Canon Pettigrew beside him when they stopped near the Cashel road.

  ‘They’re slow in finding,’ said the Canon. ‘It’s because of all the rain.’

  Batty tried to recall when they’d had all the rain, but as well as he could remember it hadn’t rained for a fortnight.

  ‘You’ll catch a cold, Canon. What happened to your hat?’

  ‘I’m afraid it must have fallen off,’ he said, peering around uncertainly.

  Good job his head is screwed on, thought Batty. It was never easy to know just how conscious the Canon was.

  Hounds were working at a high place of briars and rusty bracken. Nolan’s lios. They’d get nothing there only fairies. Tim Kelly must have been thinking the same way. He shook up his hounds and took them smartly away, moving north towards the higher ground. After drawing a blank at Jacobs’, they tried Hogan’s knock, and at once got results. A loud blast on the huntsman’s horn was answered by the music of the hounds. Rounding a corner, Batty nearly ran into the Canon, who was standing in his stirrups, staring in the opposite direction to that taken by the pack and shouting at the top of his voice, ‘Gone away!’

  It’s his brains, thought Batty, and laughed, and shouted, ‘This way, Canon!’

  He took the longer way round Burke’s to avoid the stony lane and he remembered another day when Wigeon, after being similarly hindered by the Canon, had come up to them, red-faced, spluttering, ‘That blunderin’ old eejit, Canon Pettigrew, got right across me, nearly had me off. Silly old bugger, always gettin’ in the way, with his owl’s head on him, and that stupid-lookin’ animal of his like a cross between a jackass and a … a …’

  ‘Come, Mr Stewart,’ Lady Catherine had interposed. ‘You have a wonderful flow of language but you do know that poor Canon Pettigrew doesn’t see very well.’

  ‘He’s well able to see what I put on the plate of a Sunday,’ Wigeon had said, winking at Batty. Wigeon’s rages produced more fun than fury and never lasted long.

  The gallop came to a stop beyond Burke’s when they lost their fox at the little stream that runs down into Minaun. They climbed the farther slope and reached the level again through an open gate. He mopped his face with a large white handkerchief and then carefully wiped Skoury’s neck and tickled him behind his ear and whispered to him as they moved slowly across a ploughed field.

  Now who was that on Robin’s gelding? A likely-looking bit. It must be one of Robin’s daughters, but they couldn’t be that age yet. What a thigh! He raised his cap very civilly.

  ‘Some idiot drove his sheep right across the line in front of us,’ she snarled. It was one of Robin’s daughters all right. She sounded just like the gentle Pauline.

  ‘Some of these country fellows haven’t a clue,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Peasants!’ she hissed. She had a luscious mouth, for all that. Like her mother, Pauline Kerr.

  Peasants they used to be, now they’re all gentlemen; Robin no less, himself no less, and this strapping wench with the pouting red lips a peasant’s daughter, God bless her. Fine girl you are, steer clear or Robin might want him to marry her. What she didn’t know – how could she? – was that the peasant with the sheep was young Dave Burke whose father, Dave, had grounded Pauline in the old days. That, of course, was before Pauline sobered up and married Robin.

  Whoa, there, Skoury! Must let out that iron a bit, his left leg was hurting again, memento of Killatiarna, by God that was a day and a half. He swung to the ground and then remembered his flask.

  ‘Batty, is something the matter?’ It was Lady Catherine. Me fly is open, he said, but not out loud, you didn’t say things like that to Lady Catherine. He went to slip the flask back into his pocket, and then thought, Hell! Why?

  ‘Would you like a little drop to warm you?’

  ‘Why, thank you, Batty.’ She was a good sport. She didn’t really want it and he suspected that though she
put the flask to her mouth she drank none. What a woman she must have been in her day. She still had two of the finest legs in the county.

  But as they waited together near the Lacken covert, he was thinking of another similar encounter, not with Lady Catherine but with Maggie.

  ‘Have a jorum, Maggie. ’Twill tighten the elastic in your knickers.’

  ‘You’re deplorably vulgar, Batty,’ she had said, coming up close beside him and digging her knee into him.

  ‘I know, I know. It’s the way I’m made. But I’m irresistible to women,’ and he had looked down at her grinning.

  ‘Are you sure you mean irresistible? Are you sure you don’t mean irresponsible?’

  That wasn’t his line of country at all, so he had only grunted and said, ‘Don’t drink all that.’

  He remembered, however, the way she had persisted. ‘You really do believe that. You really believe you’re the answer to any maiden’s prayer. And that’s the rock you’ll perish on, Batty.’

  She had said it in such a way that from that day on he had been a bit scared of her and had never felt as free and easy with her as before.

  It was the hounds giving tongue in a very businesslike way that jerked him from his reverie.

  ‘They’ve put up something,’ said Lady Catherine, and sure enough when they rounded the covert, there was the pack stretching out up a half-ploughed stubble. Batty yelled ‘He’ll have to give us a run. He’s headed away from the hill,’ and at that moment he caught a glimpse of the fox on the wintry horizon just before he disappeared. They swept on and were soon labouring up that stubble. He could feel the lift and thrust of Skoury’s shoulders as he leaned forward, and then he gave him a breather as they stepped up a stony lane towards the top, joined now by several other riders. Then out again into the open, and a glorious run began, right the full length of Benire valley, Lady Catherine thundering along beside him, away out in front hounds at full stretch. Kelly struggling to keep in touch, he could see no one else, the wind cold and cutting on his face. There really was nothing in the whole world to compare with it after all.