The Made Marriage Read online

‘Not so very different,’ Owen put in curtly. ‘It was simply that Nicky happened to strike a particularly responsive chord when it came to Kate. I doubt if, in spite of his efforts, Nicky got many replies to his advertisement.’

  ‘And that’s just where you’re wrong, my dear cousin,’ Nicky put in triumphantly. ‘On the contrary, I received shoals of billets-doux from all sorts of interested females. It just happened that Kate’s appealed to me most: it was so naive, so charming. You certainly put your heart and soul into them,’ he told Kate. ‘I must be a romantic character at heart; I certainly had loads of fun answering you.’

  He glanced at her mockingly and Kate wished that the floor would open and swallow her.

  ‘Do you know, you’re much prettier than that photograph gave you credit for.’

  ‘Oh, did you send a photograph too?’ Doretta gave a sudden giggle that was at variance with the air of cool sophistication that she had so evidently studiously assumed.

  Kate glanced around her desperately: she had the feeling now that she was the amused focus of all the other diners and that they were fully aware of the ignominy of her position.

  ‘I don’t find your efforts at humour at all funny, Nicky,’ Owen put in harshly, ‘and it’s high time you gave up your infantile practical jokes.’

  Gratefully Kate glanced across at Owen, then realised with dismay that his intention had been not to come to her defence, but rather that he had grown impatient with Nicky’s facetiousness.

  ‘But don’t you agree that I’ve done you a favour: tossed into your lap, as it were, a perfectly suitable bride? Without my efforts you would probably end up a crusty old bachelor.’

  ‘I haven’t the remotest intention of marrying,’ Owen said coldly, ‘Kate is simply staying on until my housekeeper returns.’

  ‘You mean the worthy Mrs. Murphy has taken herself off? How singularly fortunate! It leaves the field clear for you, doesn’t it? Without a chaperon you have loads of opportunity to get to know each other.’

  He was deliberately trying to arouse his cousin’s ire, Kate could see, but Owen, without conveying whether it was with an effort or not, refused to rise to the bait. ‘Mrs. Murphy happens to have broken her arm and Kate has taken over meanwhile. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s purely a business arrangement.’

  ‘Ah-ha!’ Nicky sipped from his glass and regarded Owen consideringly. ‘All the same, it is a considerably more attractive arrangement than having stout Mrs. Murphy, who’s given to the bottle, about the house. Poor old dear, I’m sorry to hear she’s on the sick list: she always had a soft spot for me. She considers me a bit of a boyo, but can’t resist me at the same time. If she returns and finds Kate in charge there’ll be the devil to pay, especially if she’s had a drop of the creature. Poor Mother nearly hit the ceiling when the news got around to her. You know how conventional she is! I never could understand how she could marry a tearaway like the poor lamented Pop.’

  ‘Speaking of Aunt Alice,’ Owen put in, ‘She called on me and gave me a lecture about the family name being dragged in the mud. At least you could have had the decency to try to keep your crazy schemes from her!’

  ‘Oh, I’m afraid it was my fault,’ Doretta put in contritely. ‘I was so amused when Nicky told me about the letters and how he had arranged to secure for you a bride. It was so very funny that I tell Mrs. Fitzpatrick. I thought it would make her laugh,’ she added, with an air of childish disappointment that was obviously intended to disarm.

  ‘On the contrary, it made her do anything but laugh,’ Owen said grimly.

  Doretta nodded with an air of understanding. ‘And of course, it is only to be understood! The matriarch of a family of such importance and honour as the Fitzpatricks must be strictly comme il faut. It would be exactly the same in my country. At this time Nicky is too wild to realise that the elite have a duty towards those who look up to them, but when he takes over Ballyfeeny House he will become very grave and proper. Won’t you, Nicky darling? And spend your time hunting and pottering in your greenhouses?’ She glanced across at Nicky through thickly mascaraed lashes.

  Owen glanced at her in surprise. ‘You don’t quite get the picture. Nicky won’t inherit a stick or stone of Ballyfeeny House. In fact he’ll do devil all pottering around his greenhouses, for as I see it, they’ll be razed to the ground by building speculators.’

  Doretta gave a little shocked gasp and Kate realised that for once her reactions were perfectly genuine. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘I’m telling you,’ Owen continued with an air of impatience, ‘that while I’m prepared to put up with poor Aunt Alice’s phantasies concerning the grandeur of the Fitzpatricks, I’m certainly not going to humour Nicky by pretending that the Fitzpatricks are a family of wealth or position!’

  ‘Not wealthy!’ Doretta’s voice rose shrilly. ‘But what nonsense you talk! There are the mills. I have seen them. And Ballyfeeny House is a mansion with grounds and stables. It is the home of a family of distinction. And Nicky’s car is of a type most expensive—’

  Owen shook his head. ‘He doesn’t own that either. Ask him.’

  Doretta swung towards her companion with a cobra-like swiftness that made him blink. ‘Say he is telling lies,’ she demanded fiercely. ‘Are you not heir to the mills and to Ballyfeeny House?’

  Nicky sighed and swirled the contents of his glass. ‘Sorry, old girl, but I suppose you’d have to know sooner or later. No, I’m afraid the glory of the Fitzpatricks has passed away. The pater, as I mentioned, was a bit of a boyo and spent very little time on the family business. Apart from that, he had extremely expensive tastes. Of course, he died before he himself felt the pinch. But actually we’re living at Ballyfeeny only because the directors didn’t want to turn us out. For old times’ sake they’ve agreed Mother should have the use of it during her lifetime, and after her, the deluge.’

  ‘But what about the car? You go to the mills almost every day—’

  ‘I’m employed there, dear girl, as a sort of superior office boy—again for the sake of the Fitzpatricks’ long association with the business, their former honoured position in the countryside, etc., etc., and don’t bother to bring up my oar! I have only the use of it. Prestige and that sort of thing!’

  There was a short stunned silence as Doretta digested this. Then her eyes flashed angrily. ‘So I have been deceived!’

  Nicky looked a little sheepish. ‘Knowing the female sex as I do, I expected I’d cut more ice with you if you thought I was to be boss of the whole concern. Anyway, why should you be particularly incensed?’ he asked with an air of mild interest. ‘It’s not your funeral.’

  ‘Not my funeral?’ Doretta sounded puzzled. ‘I do not know what you mean.’

  ‘What he means,’ Owen interjected dryly, ‘is that the fact that he’s not affluent shouldn’t affect you.’

  Doretta looked taken aback and seemed at a loss for words, and Kate realised that it was only by a supreme effort that the girl prevented herself from launching into a spate of bitter vituperation.

  ‘You see, dear girl,’ Nicky explained, ‘the Fitzpatricks have the house, but Owen has the money.’

  Again Doretta frowned impatiently. ‘Why do you talk in riddles? I have seen Owen’s house,’ she added, with barely concealed contempt. ‘It is small compared to Ballyfeeny, quite bourgeois, with no proper appointments or servants. You talk nonsense.’

  ‘That’s just where you’re wrong,’ Nicky told her. ‘Owen’s a very wealthy man. He believes in working in his own fields beside his men and not wasting his money on the frills. Perhaps if my father had done it I shouldn’t be in the jam I’m in now, and the Fitzpatricks might have held on to Ballyfeeny.’

  He sounded subdued and Kate wondered if, for the first time, she was seeing him with his mask of mockery dropped or if this was simply a transitory patch of depression in his exuberant way through life. Gloomily he helped himself to another glass of wine.

  Doretta shrugged. ‘Oh well, as you
say so quaintly, it is not my funeral.’

  As the conversation turned to local affairs Kate watched Doretta. It was obvious that she was well versed in the affairs of the locality and the idiosyncrasies of their neighbours, but she got the impression that Doretta was sharing in the conversation with only a part of her attention. Under the smooth wings of her hair another part of Doretta’s brain was turning over the unexpected news of the Fitzpatrick poverty and making swift and radical changes in her plans with all the incisiveness of a general redeploying his forces.

  As though aware that Kate’s attention was on her, she leaned forward during a lull in the conversation and asked with a disarming air of interest if Kate was a good cook.

  Kate, feeling a little guilty at her instinctive distrust of the girl, said hastily, ‘Well, no, not very good. At least,’ she added, ‘not good at the kind of food the men like.’

  ‘She means,’ Owen smiled, ‘that she’s accustoming herself to cooking bacon and cabbage, and some of the men’s favourites. She’s pretty competent otherwise and no doubt she’ll learn, all in good time.’ He glanced at Kate swiftly and she felt a little warm glow permeate her whole being as she realised it was his way of showing approbation.

  Doretta gave a little trill of laughter. ‘Bacon and cabbage—no, I don’t like the sound of that.’ Her mouth formed a little moue of repugnance, and her eyes were bright as they fixed themselves on Owen’s face.

  ‘No doubt you wouldn’t like it,’ Owen said, ‘but it’s a different matter if you’re working all day in the fields. No,’ he added thoughtfully as he regarded the delicate cameo features of Doretta, ‘you look as if you lived exclusively on a diet of nectar and morning dew.’

  Doretta lowered her lashes until they lay on her cheeks like silken fringes.

  ‘Hey there,’ Nicky called with mock alarm, ‘what’s going on between you two? Here I go and fix my beloved cousin up with a perfectly suitable bride and you begin luring him away, you siren, and have him talking about nectar and morning dew and whatnot, which, apart from not being his line of country, is positively untrue. As well as being beautiful Doretta is a divine cook and not only makes but consumes whopping helpings of risotto.’

  ‘Yes,’ Doretta remarked with a childlike vanity that was somehow endearing, ‘Nicky is right, I am a very good cook, and I have no time for people who pick at their food. But then I do not put on weight, so why should I worry?’

  ‘Atta girl,’ Nicky agreed, helping himself to another glass of wine. ‘Why don’t you go over to Owen’s place and give Kate a demonstration?’

  ‘You say that only because you have had too much to drink,’ Doretta said candidly, ‘but it is a good idea. Would you like me to show you how to make risotto, Kate? I am sure the workmen would like it every bit as much as cabbage and bacon, which sounds altogether too hideous.’ Again she shrugged with distaste.

  Kate glanced helplessly at Owen. She had the feeling that Doretta’s offer was directly related to the discovery that Nicky was not the wealthy heir to Ballyfeeny and that Owen, rather than his cousin, was a man of wealth. She had no wish to have Doretta disrupting the even tenor of her life at Laragh. She now had the kitchen equipment arranged to her convenience and had managed to track down and correct most of Mrs. Murphy’s peculiar methods of storage. Doretta’s mind, Kate felt, would only be half on the concocting of risotto and more directly engaged in presenting a pretty and alluring picture to her host.

  ‘I’m sure Kate would love you to give her a few tips. Wouldn’t you, Kate?’ Owen asked.

  Kate nodded without enthusiasm and wondered if he had any idea of how unwelcome the idea was to her.

  ‘Looks as if you’ve kissed the Blarney stone, Doretta,’ Nicky remarked, ‘when you’re able to get around old Owen.’

  ‘You are always talking in riddles, Nicky,’ Doretta said crossly. ‘What is the Blarney stone, and why should I kiss it?’

  ‘Because if you kiss it you’re sure to develop the gift of charming people with your eloquence.’

  ‘She’s well able to do that without kissing the stone,’ Owen said.

  ‘But I should like to kiss this stone. Where is it, and is it difficult?’ Doretta asked curiously.

  ‘The Blarney stone is situated at the top of Blarney Castle, which is an old Norman castle in the little village of Blarney in County Cork. It is set on the outside wall and one has to be held tightly while one kisses it.’

  Doretta shuddered. ‘I should be terrified! I think I shall not bother to kiss the Blarney stone.’

  Owen seemed to be amused and intrigued by her reaction. ‘You would be quite safe. I should hold you.’ Kate saw the sudden alertness that this suggestion caused in Doretta. ‘You mean that you will take me?’

  ‘Why not? We farmers take a day off occasionally.’

  ‘But that would be charming,’ Doretta said eagerly.

  ‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’ Nicky groaned.

  She had not been included in the invitation, Kate realised to her mortification. But then why should she be? She was merely Owen Lawlor’s employee, someone to see to the men’s meals and generally keep the household running. Why should she have expected to be included in his social life? Even the reason that she was sitting there in his company was because she had shown too plainly her mortification at his aunt’s treatment, and he had indulged in a passing benevolence when he had invited her to accompany him to Limerick. Anyway, why should he spoil his day with Doretta by including his domestic help? She sat listening to the desultory chatter of her companions, feeling alone and out of things and wishing that she was safely back in her room at Laragh with the oil lamp glittering on the brass bed and casting a golden glow on the crisp white linen. It would be soothing to write to Margot and tell her all about Nicky and the beautiful Doretta. She would not say much about Owen. Not yet! Her feelings towards her employer were too ambiguous as yet to bear much probing. Did she like or dislike this man with the craggy weatherbeaten features? she wondered.

  Later they drove back towards Laragh along winding white roads past fields greener than any illustration in a child’s picture-book and hedges laden with may blossom. Both were sunk in their own thoughts as they sped through the scented evening in silence.

  Then Owen said so suddenly and abruptly that she started, ‘Well, what do you think of Doretta? I already know your opinion of my cousin.’

  ‘He’s not quite as I expected him to be,’ Kate hedged, confining her remarks to Nicky.

  ‘Now what do you mean by that equivocal remark?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, I thought of him as being vicious and cruel, but now I realise it’s not just as simple as that. It’s as though he had no idea of how his behaviour affects other people’s lives. Like a little boy pulling the wings off a butterfly, because he doesn’t realise the harm he’s doing.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right, although personally I don’t take such a charitable view of my cousin. But then that’s perhaps because I know a great deal more about him than you do. I hope you don’t learn the hard way that Nicky may be more dangerous than he appears.’

  He frowned and she could see that already his mind had drifted away from her. ‘It’s a pity Doretta has become involved with him. To Nicky, no doubt, she’ll just be one of many other girls he has cultivated and then discarded, but Doretta’s different. She’s much too talented and beautiful to become one of Nicky’s former girl-friends.’

  ‘I should say she’s well able to look after herself,’ Kate said a little crossly. In spite of the fact that her employer’s affairs had nothing whatever to do with her, she could not restrain the disappointed ‘let-down’ feeling that although they were close together in the small car and passing through romantically beautiful scenery, Owen’s mind had already reverted to the glamorous Doretta.

  ‘What did you say?’ he asked absently.

  Kate, with an effort, restrained herself from repeating her remark with asperity. Instead, she said, ‘I’m perf
ectly sure she’s well aware of the type of man Nicky is and won’t be surprised if he should suddenly lose interest in her.’

  Owen turned the car at the crossroads and headed down the tarred road that led to the main gates of Laragh. ‘I don’t think you’re right as far as Doretta’s concerned. Did you notice how she had been completely deceived about the Fitzpatrick financial affairs?’

  ‘I can’t see what Nicky’s financial affairs have to do with Doretta,’ Kate remarked.

  He smiled tolerantly. ‘But, my dear girl, if she’s in love with him it’s only sensible and practical to know exactly how he stands.’

  Of course that’s how you’d look on romance! Kate thought with exasperation. But then what could she expect of a man with the outlook of Owen Lawlor? To him, marriage would be a cold businesslike arrangement for both parties’ mutual benefit. It was not surprising he had despised her for falling for what he would consider the mushier parts of Nicky’s correspondence.

  ‘If she’s really in love with him, the fact that Nicky doesn’t own Ballyfeeny House and is only an employee at the mill shouldn’t make any difference to her attitude,’ she retorted stubbornly, remembering Doretta’s unconcealed fury when she had realised Nicky’s true position.

  ‘Now you’re being silly,’ he said calmly. ‘When you’re older and a little wiser you’ll realise that the old saying about love flying out the window is perfectly true.’ Then as they drove through the gates of Laragh, with a sense of shock she heard him say, ‘Tell me, as one woman judging another, and as an expert on romance, would you say Doretta is in love with Nicky?’

  Remembering how swiftly Doretta had transferred her interest to himself when she had heard that he was wealthy, Kate said dryly, ‘No, I shouldn’t imagine that she has any interest in him beyond his pocket-book.’

  He smiled maddeningly as he drew up the car and turned to her. ‘Now you’re being typically feminine.’

  It was all too obvious that what he implied was that she was jealous of Doretta, and as she had a guilty awareness that this was partly true she wished she had been more cautious and detached in her reply. However, caution had never been one of her strong points, Kate thought with a sigh, as she got out.