A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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had fallen into a doze in the taxi and only murmured drowsily as Brian gathered her into his arms.
The butler’s eyes were full of anxiety as he cried, ‘What’s happened, sir? Can I help you at all?’
‘There was a bit of an accident in the town, concerning the carriage,’ Brian said, ‘and I left it there. Pay the driver, will you, like a good chap? My hands are rather occupied at the moment.’
‘Do you want help with Miss Gloria, sir?’ Planchard said as he paid the driver, picked up his master’s bag and cast a curious look at Joe, who had climbed out of the taxi and was looking around, not quite sure what to do next.
‘I’m all right,’ Brian said as they walked towards the house. ‘There is no weight to Gloria. But you might look after this brave man here beside me. Name of Joe Sullivan, hailed recently from one of the immigrant ships from Ireland. He will be staying to dinner tonight.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the butler said, dutifully enough, and yet in the light spilling out from the hall Joe caught the man’s surprised eyes alight on him speculatively as he bent towards Joe to take his case.
Joe hid his smile, for he guessed that New York was full of people from immigrant ships from all over the world, but none of them had been brought to the Brannigan house for dinner before. He also knew that he would probably be the talk of the place by morning.
‘Now, Joe,’ Brian said as they reached the house, ‘Planchard will take charge of you, while I get Gloria sorted out.’
Planchard nodded in Joe’s direction and, leaving his case in the hall, he said, ‘If you leave your bag next to the case, sir, I will show you into the drawing room.’
‘And when you have done that,’ Brian said, ‘perhaps you will tell your mistress what has happened and inform her that I am taking Gloria straight to her room. Summon Tilly too, for Miss Gloria may have need of her, and someone had better go for the doctor urgently.’
‘I’ll attend to it all directly, sir,’ Planchard said.
Brian began to mount the ornate staircase, still with Gloria in his arms, while the butler said to Joe, ‘If you would follow me, sir …’
Joe smiled ruefully because it was a novelty being called ‘sir’ and it had happened twice. Wondering what sort of room a drawing room was, he left down his bag and followed the butler, who crossed the black-and-white-tiled hall and opened cream double doors to a low and elegant room with a carpet so thick Joe’s feet sank into it. ‘If you will just wait here, sir,’ the butler said, ‘I am sure that Mr Brannigan will be with you shortly.’
Left alone, Joe glanced around the room with interest and a little fear, for he felt totally out of his depth. The room was lit with electric lights set around the walls and in a huge glass chandelier, which hung from the patterned ceiling. A gold suite was drawn up in front of the white marble fireplace where a welcoming fire blazed in the grate. Joe delicately ran his hands over the brocade pattern of the upholstery and wondered if he would ever dare to sit on one of those chairs.
He glanced at the small ornate clock on the mantelpiece. It was made of gold, which sparkled in the firelight, and had a glass front so the swinging pendulum was visible. ‘Almost six o’clock,’ Joe said to himself and, looking out where the silken curtains to either side of the large window had not been drawn, he saw the evening was as black as pitch.
He crossed the room and stood for a long time peering out at the grounds surrounding the house, marvelling at it all. He thought back to his many, uneventful years in Ireland. He knew that when he thought about his new life in America he could never have imagined the chain of events that had landed him in a house such as this, as the invited guest of such an obviously prominent and wealthy man. He tingled with excitement for he just knew that his life would take off from this point.
He wished no harm at all on the beautiful young lady he had rescued from danger and yet he couldn’t but thank his lucky stars that her father was a factory owner. He just knew that Brian Brannigan could shape his future in America.
‘Ah, there you are, my boy.’
Joe swung around from the window. Brian was standing in the doorway arm in arm with a lady whom he introduced as his wife, Norah. The resemblance to Gloria was marked. Joe guessed that once the older woman’s hair had been just as strikingly blonde as her daughter’s, but now it was much duller and tied from her face in a sort of fancy bun at the nape of her neck. She had the same high cheekbones, and the same-shaped eyes, though Norah’s were plain blue. Behind them Joe saw the resentment and he knew that Mrs Brannigan didn’t want the likes of him sitting down at her table.
When Brian had told Norah of the accident and of Joe’s part in it and went on to say that he had invited the man to dinner, she had looked at him as if she couldn’t believe her ears. She had been up to see Gloria, and she was distressed and worried, and now this other bombshell.
‘You have invited that man to dinner, here?’ she’d repeated.
‘Aye,’ said Brian. ‘I did.’
‘And why, pray, did you do that?’
‘Do what, my dear?’ Brian had asked mildly.
‘Oh, don’t be so obtuse, Brian,’ Norah asked. ‘Why ask a common workman to dinner?’
‘Didn’t I explain what he did, and that if he hadn’t been there—’
‘Of course you have explained,’ Norah snapped. ‘Though if you had acted as a proper father and refused to take Gloria to such an unsuitable place then she would have been in no danger whatsoever. But whatever he did I’m sure the man would hardly have expected to be asked to dine with us. Why didn’t you thank him sincerely, as I am prepared to do, offer him a sum of money and send him on his way? Find him a job if you must, but to ask him to dinner is madness. Surely you can see that he is bound to feel out of place and uncomfortable.’
‘It was done in the heat of the moment,’ Brian admitted. ‘However, he is here now and you must accept it, my dear.’
‘You do not have to explain manners to me,’ Norah hissed. ‘I know how to behave and conduct myself, and much better than you.’
Despite her views, though, Norah was quite impressed when she saw Joe. He was a handsome and well set up young man, and had a way of carrying himself. Added to that, his brown eyes looked honest and steady and he was at least respectable.
Norah Brannigan extended her hand to Joe and said, through pert, thin lips, ‘I believe my husband and I have much to thank you for, Mr Sullivan? He tells me you saved our daughter’s life today.’
‘I happened to be in the right place at the right time, ma’am, that was all,’ Joe said. ‘I was just glad to be of service.’
‘Gloria is much more comfortable now,’ Brian said. ‘We are awaiting the doctor and her maid, Tilly, is sitting with her.’
‘I trust she will make a full and speedy recovery,’ Joe said.
‘So do I,’ Norah agreed. And then she cast a venomous look in her husband’s direction. ‘Of course, the whole thing should never have happened in the first place.’
‘Now, Norah,’ Brian said in a placating tone, ‘we have been all through that.’ He turned to Joe. ‘Now if you give me the name and address of your sponsor, I will send him word where you are.’ Joe gave it to him and he wrote it on the pad he lifted from the desk, then pulled the bell rope by the side of the fireplace. ‘We will have dinner shortly after the doctor has been, but in the meantime would you like a drink?’ he asked Joe.
Joe thought about what the men on the ship coming over had said about the Prohibition Law in America forbidding the sale or production of alcohol, but from the vast array of bottles in the cabinet, he could see no sign of it in the Brannigan household. This didn’t surprise him for, in his experience, most rich people seemed to be able to sidestep the law.
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