"And they have no business which keeps them in Cork?" continued the priest, who seemed to be very curious on the matter.
"Well, they do have business, I suppose," said Fanny, "but av so I never sees it." Fanny O'Dwyer had a great respect for her uncle, seeing that he filled an exalted position, and was a connexion of whom she could be justly proud; but, though she had now come down to Kanturk with the view of having a good talk with her aunt and uncle about the Molletts, she would only tell as much as she liked to tell, even to the parish priest of Drumbarrow. And we may as well explain here that Fanny had now permanently made up her mind to reject the suit of Mr. Abraham Mollett. As she had allowed herself to see more and more of the little domestic ways of that gentleman, and to become intimate with him as a girl should become with the man she intends to marry, she had gradually learned to think that he hardly came up to her beau ideal of a lover. That he was crafty and false did not perhaps offend her as it should have done. Dear Fanny, excellent and gracious as she was, could herself be crafty on occasions. He drank too, but that came in the way of her profession. It is hard, perhaps, for a barmaid to feel much severity against that offence. But in addition to this Aby was selfish and cruel and insolent, and seldom altogether good tempered. He was bad to his father, and bad to those below him whom he employed. Old Mollett would give away his sixpences with a fairly liberal hand, unless when he was exasperated by drink and fatigue. But Aby seldom gave away a penny. Fanny had sharp eyes, and soon felt that her English lover was not a man to be loved, though he had two rings, a gold chain, and half a dozen fine waistcoats.
And then another offence had come to light in which the Molletts were both concerned. Since their arrival in South Main Street they had been excellent customers—indeed quite a godsend, in this light, to Fanny, who had her own peculiar profit out of such house-customers as they were. They had paid their money like true Britons,—not regularly indeed, for regularity had not been desired, but by a five pound now, and another in a day or two, just as they were wanted. Nothing indeed could be better than this, for bills so paid are seldom rigidly scrutinized. But of late, within the last week, Fanny's requests for funds had not been so promptly met, and only on the day before her visit to Kanturk she had been forced to get her father to take a bill from Mr. Mollett senior for £20 at two months' date. This was a great come-down, as both Fanny and her father felt, and they had begun to think that it might be well to bring their connexion with the Molletts to a close. What if an end had come to the money of these people, and their bills should be dishonoured when due? It was all very well for a man to have claims against Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, but Fanny O'Dwyer had already learnt that nothing goes so far in this world as ready cash.
"They do have business, I suppose," said Fanny.
"It won't be worth much, I'm thinking," said Mrs. O'Dwyer, "when they can't pay their weekly bills at a house of public entertainment, without flying their names at two months' date."
Mrs. O'Dwyer hated any such payments herself, and looked on them as certain signs of immorality. That every man should take his drop of drink, consume it noiselessly, and pay for it immediately—that was her idea of propriety in its highest form.
"And they've been down here three or four times, each of them," said Father Barney, thinking deeply on the subject.
"I believe they have," said Fanny. "But of course I don't know much of where they've been to."
Father Barney knew very well that his dear niece had been on much more intimate terms with her guest than she pretended. The rumours had reached his ears some time since that the younger of the two strangers in South Main Street was making himself agreeable to the heiress of the hotel, and he had intended to come down upon her with all the might of an uncle, and, if necessary, with all the authority of the Church. But now that Fanny had discarded her lover, he wisely felt that it would be well for him to know nothing about it. Both uncles and priests may know too much—very foolishly.
"I have seen them here myself," said he, "and they have both been up at Castle Richmond."