Grandmother and the Priests by Taylor Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page B

marry riches, too, and even great beauty and family did not impress the Dubliners, who had learned much from the Sassenagh, the tradesman. Dolores could dance like a fairy; she could chatter in French; she could do fine needle-work; she was very pious; she knew how to manage a household. She appeared to float, rather than walk. She had a saintly character, and a high sense of mischief. She was eighteen, and adorable. But she had no money.
     
    It was soon evident, at the ball, that Dolores was attracted to the Honorable Henry Laurance. As for poor Henry, he was mad for the girl. He walked about in a daze; he visibly trembled when he danced with her. He tripped on her heels when she moved ahead of him. And she smiled on him with radiance. The parents were alarmed, as the days of the festivity passed. (Irish festivities do not end in a day, and sometimes not even in a week.) Henry was only an Honorable, though distinctly a distinguished Honorable. His brother, Michael, was a peer. He would marry eventually, and produce an heir to the title, which was one of the grandest in Ireland. He would always have, and his heirs, what little poor estate there was. Henry would never have anything. He could smile the heart out of you, but that was all. Even an Irish smile could not put a gown on a girl’s back, nor conjure a dinner on the table or a sovereign in a pocket.
     
    Michael was also in love — with Dolores. Shyer than his effulgent brother, he could only stare at Dolores from a distance. She would sometimes drift to him and chaff him; his only reply was a stutter or a blush. She teased him; he looked miserable. She floated off, and his heart was in his eyes. And Henry was always at her side, laughing richly, dancing magnificently, smiling like the sun itself. The parents came to the conclusion that Dolores had fallen in love, with Henry.
     
    Their alarm increasing, they called their priest and despairingly laid the matter before him. He had a quiet talk with Dolores. The young men returned to their ruined castle. But very soon Henry was writing daily to Dolores, and Michael once a month. “And what are you doing, Father, to help us?” cried the anguished parents. “Patience,” said the priest. As Dolores had spoken to him in confidence he could reveal nothing at all. He only smiled. The parents, giving up the priest as a bad job, rushed to the rescue of their bemused daughter. If she married either of these poverty-stricken lads at all, she must marry Michael, Lord Cunningham. They laid down the law. Dolores listened, her eyes downcast. Then she agreed with her parents. It must be Michael or no one. She was a dutiful daughter. They did not see the mischief in her eyes.
     
    (“Ah, and she crushed the pour heart in her,” said Grandmother in a sentimental tone, she who was as sentimental as a crocodile.)
     
    The Monsignor appeared not to hear this. He said meditatively, “There are those who know nothing about the Irish and who therefore maintain that the Irish are a jolly and effervescent race, and display all their emotions copiously at any provocation. They forget that there is much of the stern Spaniard in the Irish, and his moroseness and his dignity, which prevents him from being vulgar and spilling out his feelings and the secrets of his soul. These he will express only in song and poetry.”
     
    The two brothers, Michael and Henry, loved each other deeply but by nature could not express this love except in the companionship of the hunt or the worry over the bills and taxes. “Even Our Lord,” Michael would say, “found the tax-gatherer, the publican, the man in most need of the mercy of God, for is he not evil by nature and doomed to hell, lest he repent?” (This was too deep for Henry, though he hated the publican also; he could only shake his head and think simply of the mace, a fine iron ball with spikes sprouting from it. The publican, to Henry, meant the Englishman.) The brothers had been closer than