CHAPTER IX
THE DORCAS SOCIETY
The Dorcas Society was Jane's idea. She thought of it one Monday evening as they all sat round the kitchen fire watching Lull make soup for the poor. A bad harvest had been followed by an unusually wild winter. Storms such as had not been known for fifty years swept over the country, and now, after three months of storm, February had come with a hard frost and biting wind that drove the cold home to the very marrow of your bones. In winters past the poor had come from miles round to Rowallan, where a boiler full of soup was never off the kitchen fire. This winter, driven by want, some of those who remembered the old days had come back once more, and Lull, out of her scanty store, had filled once more the big boiler. On this Monday evening, as she stirred the soup, she mourned for the good days past.
"Troth, Rowallan was the full an' plenty house when the ould master was alive. Bad an' all as he was there was good in him. It was a sayin' among the neighbours that if ye'd had three bellies on ye ye could 'a' filled them all at Rowallan." Lull could have talked all night on this subject. "An' the ould mistress, God have mercy on her; she'd have blankets an' flannel petticoats, an' dear knows what all, for the women an' childer; I'm sayin' Rowallan was the full an' plenty house wanst."
"Well, I wisht it was now," said Mick. "I met Anne M'Farlane on the road the day, an' ye could see the bones of her through her poor ould duds."
"Ah, I thought a quare pity a' her myself," said Patsy; "the teeth was rattlin' in her head."
"That'll make me cry when I'm in bed the night," said Honeybird sorrowfully.
It was then that the idea of a Dorcas Society, such as their mother had told them of, came to Jane, and was taken up enthusiastically by the others. "Ye get ould clothes, an' mend them, an' fix them for people," she explained to Lull. "We could have a brave one with all them things in the blue-room cupboards."
"Is it the clothes of your ould ancestry ye're for givin' away? I'm thinkin' ye'll get small thanks for that rubbidge," said Lull.
"Why, they're beautiful things, that warm an' thick," Jane protested, "an' we'd fix them up first." Lull looked at the five eager faces watching hers. She hated to damp their ardour, but she knew what the village would think of such gifts.
"Say yes, plaze," Honeybird begged, "or I'll be awful sorry ivery time I mind Anne M'Farlane shiverin'."
"Go on, Lull; many's the time I can hardly sleep when I think the people's cowld," said Mick.
"We'd begin at wanst," said Fly eagerly, and Lull weakly gave in. "God send they don't be makin' scarecrows a' the poor," she murmured when the children had departed in joyful haste to begin their Dorcas Society. For three days they could think and talk of nothing else. Lull, watching them, regretted that she had not the heart to discourage them at the first, for they took such pleasure and pride in their society that she could not disappoint them now. She did drop a few hints, but nobody took any notice. The clothes from the blue-room cupboards represented the fashions for the past fifty years—full-skirted gowns, silk and satin, tarlatan, and bombazine calashes, areophane bonnets, Dolly Varden hats, pelerines, burnouses, shawls, tippets. At these Fly and Jane sewed from morning till night. Fly saw the hand of Providence in an attack of rheumatism that kept Mr Rannigan in bed and put off lessons for a week. The boys were at school, but directly they came home they sat down by the schoolroom fire to help. Honeybird could not sew; she unpicked torn linings and, on Lull's suggestion, ripped off all unnecessary bows and fringes, working so hard that she had two big blisters where the scissors chafed her fingers. On Wednesday evening all the sewing was done, and the children prepared to take the clothes to the village. Lull regretted her weakness still more when she saw how pleased they were with their work. They brought her into the schoolroom to show her everything before they packed.
"Look at that fine thing," said Honeybird, patting a red burnouse. "That'll keep Anne M'Farlane's ould bones from rattlin'." Patsy held up a buff-coloured satin gown, pointing out with pride where he had filled up the deficiencies of a very low neck with the top of a green silk pelerine.
"That's more like a dress now, isn't it, Lull?" he said. "I'm thinkin' whoiver wore that afore I fixed it must 'a' been on the bare stomach." They packed the clothes in ould Davy's wheelbarrow and the ould perambulator, and started off. Jane and Mick wheeled the loads. Patsy held a lantern, Fly and Honeybird carried armfuls of bonnets and hats that would have been crushed among the heavy things. Lull felt like a culprit as she watched them go. She waited with some anxiety for them to come home, but they came back as pleased as they had been when they started. Everybody was delighted, and had promised to wear their gifts.
"Anne M'Farlane cried, she was that glad," Honeybird told Lull.
"An', mind ye, the things fitted quare an' well," said Mick. "The only thing I have my doubts about was thon lilac boots ye give Mrs Cush."
"They went on her all right," said Jane.
"Ah, but I could see they hurted her all the same," said Mick; "but I suppose they'll stretch." Lull thanked God in her heart that the people had evidently taken the will for the deed. And perhaps, after all, though the clothes were not fit to wear, some of them might be useful—one of those satin dresses would be a warm covering on a bed.
Next morning she was skimming the soup when old Mrs Kelly came in. Lull turned to greet her, and saw to her surprise that Mrs Kelly wore a tight black silk jacket and a green calash. "Saints presarve us, Mrs Kelly, woman," she exclaimed, for a moment forgetting the Dorcas Society. Mrs Kelly smiled weakly.
"I suppose I look like mad Mattie; but I couldn't be disappointin' the childer. Ye'll tell them, Lull, I come up in them, won't ye? I give them my word I would." Mrs Kelly departed with her soup, and Lull sat down to face the fact that the people had taken the children seriously. "Dear forgive me, I'm the right ould fool. The village'll be like a circus the day," she murmured. A tall figure in vivid colours passed the window. "God help us, there's Anne," she gasped. The next moment Anne M'Farlane stood in the doorway. She wore a brown bombazine dress, a red burnouse, and a bonnet of bright blue areophane. Lull greeted her as though there were nothing unusual about her appearance. But Anne, in no mood to notice this, stood still in the doorway. Lull turned towards the fire.
"Come on in an' warm yerself, Anne," she said cheerfully, trying to ignore Anne's dramatic attitude. A burst of weeping was the reply from the figure in the doorway.
"Luk at me—luk!" wailed Anne. "Did ye iver see the like in all yer days?—all the childer in the streets a-callin' after me. An' when I met the priest on the road, sez he: 'Is it aff to a weddin' ye are in Lent, Anne?' sez he." Lull could find nothing to say. She tried to make Anne come in and have some tea, but Anne's woe was beyond the comfort of tea.
"Gimme the soup, an' I'll away home to my bed," she wept. "God help me, I'd be better in my grave." She dried her eyes on the burnouse, and took her soup, adding, as she turned to go: "Don't be lettin' on to the weans, Lull. Their meanin' was a' the best, but it's an image upon airth they've made a' me—me that always lived a moral life, an' hoped to die a moral death." She went away crying.
"It's the sore penance I'll get for this day's work," Lull muttered.
Teressa was the next person to arrive, and to Lull's relief she wore her own well-known green plaid shawl. On seeing this Lull took heart again. Mrs Kelly and Anne M'Farlane were both such good-natured bodies, perhaps they would be the only ones to wear the Dorcas Society's gifts. But Teressa was charged with news. She was hardly inside the door before she began. "Man, Lull, woman, but there's the quare fun in the village the day. Ye'd split yer two sides at the people. I niver laughed as many. Thon's the curiosities a' the ould-fashionedest, to be sure. Silks an' satins trailin' round the dours like tip-top quality rared in the parlour." She took a seat by the fire. "God be thanked, the childer niver come near me; mebby they'd 'a' made a kiltie a' me, like poor Mary M'Cann, the critter." Before Lull had time to reply the door was once more opened, and old Mrs Glover came in, looking very apologetic in the full-skirted, buff-coloured satin gown that Patsy had made wearable.
"Good mornin' to ye, Lull," she curtsied. "Is that yerself, Mrs O'Rorke?" She was evidently on the verge of tears. Teressa looked pityingly at her.
"Och, but the quality does be makin' fun a' the poor," she said. Mrs Glover's tears brimmed over. "The boyseys has laughed their fill at me, an' me their ould granny," she quavered. "I'd do anythin' to oblige, but I hadn't the nerve to come out in thon fur hat: Geordie said I looked for all the world like an' ould rabbit in it."
"A dacint woman like yerself. I'm sayin', I wonder the childer would do the like," said Teressa sympathetically. Lull felt her temper rising, but she was powerless to reply. Teressa invited Mrs Glover to sit down.
"They're stirrin' weans, an' I'm not aquil for them," Mrs Glover murmured.
Teressa nodded from the other side of the fire. "Families does be terrible like other," she said.
"'Deed ay; that's no lie," said Mrs Glover plaintively. "I mind their ould grandfather afore them; many's the time the people be to curse the Pope for him afore he'd let them have the wee drap a' soup."
Lull rose in wrath. "Is it the weans ye're namin' wi that ould ruffan?" she said fiercely—"an' them stitching an' rippin' for a pack a' crabbit ould women that the saints in glory couldn't plaze."
Teressa and Mrs Glover both got up hastily, full of apologies, but Lull would not be appeased. She gave them their soup, and sent them off. "People does be thinkin' quare things," she murmured as she watched them go. "How an' iver am I going to tell the childer thon?"
She had no need, however, to tell the children. The news came from an unexpected quarter. Dinner was waiting on the schoolroom table, and the children, standing by the fire, were still discussing their Dorcas Society, when there came a tap at the door, and Miss Rannigan, the rector's niece, walked in.
Miss Rannigan was a little woman, prim and bird-like in her movements. She came to stay at the Rectory about twice a year, and the children avoided the place while she was there. She had never been to Rowallan before, and they thought she must have come to tell them that Mr Rannigan was dead. Her first words dispelled this fear.
"Fie! oh, fie!" She pointed a black-kid finger at Jane. Jane quickly reviewed her life to see which sin had been discovered. "The whole village is intoxicated, you cruel child." They all stared at her. "They tell me it was you made such shocking guys of those poor, benighted old women who are now dancing in the street like drunken playactors." A scarlet flame leapt from face to face; the children turned to each other with burning cheeks. "If my uncle had been able he would have come here himself," Miss Rannigan went on.
"We—we—we——" Jane stammered; she could not tell Miss Rannigan about the Dorcas Society.
"Do not try to make excuses," said that lady.
"We make no excuses," said Patsy wrathfully. "We done it a' purpose, just for the pure divilment a' the thing."
"Wean, dear!" Lull remonstrated.
"Their meanin' was good, miss," she began. Andy's head appeared round the door.
"If ye plaze, Miss Jane, wee Cush is here, an' she says for the love of God will ye come an' take them fancy boots off her ould granny that ye put on last night, for ne'er a buddy else can. The ould woman niver got a wink a' sleep, an' the two feet's burnin' aff her."
"I should like to teach you what a mother is," said Miss Rannigan grimly.
"Do ye think she was tellin' the truth?" said Mick when she had gone.
Jane was putting on her hat. "I'm goin' to see," she said. She departed for the village, and the others went with her, in spite of Lull's entreaties to them to stay and eat their dinner first. Lull put the dinner in the oven, and then sat down and cried. They came back miserably dejected. Miss Rannigan's tale was only too true. "There's hardly wan sober," Jane explained. "Ould Mrs Cush is, 'cause the boots hurted her that much she couldn't put fut to the flure. I had to cut them off her."
"Where did they get the drink?" Lull asked.
"At the Red Lion. John M'Fall had them all in, an' made them drunk for nuthin', 'cause they looked that awful funny in our clothes." Jane put her head down on the table, and cried bitterly. Mick tried to comfort her, while Fly and Honeybird wept on Lull's lap.
"Sure, ye did it all for the best, dear," Lull said. "It's meselfs the bad ould fool not to see how it would be from the first."
Suddenly Patsy began to laugh. "I can't help it if ye are cross wi' me, Jane, but I wisht ye'd seen ould Mrs Glover in thon furry hat."
Jane raised a wrathful face. "It's awful wicked of ye, Patsy, when mebby they'll all be took up and put in gaol through us."
"They can't be that," said Patsy, "for Sergeant M'Gee's as drunk as anybody."
Jane's face cleared. "Are ye sure?" she demanded.
"Sure! didn't ye see him walasin' round in thon tull bonnet? I heard him sayin' they'd burn tar bar'ls the night." This relieved their anxiety, but it could not do away with the disgrace. The children avoided the village for weeks, and never again mentioned the Dorcas Society.