Bruar's Rest

could examine it.
    ‘I didn’t feel a thing, you have a touch of gentleness about you.’
    Stephen curled a hand round his wife’s narrow middle and said, ‘that’s because she is a trained nurse. She gave it up to take on me and our Nuala.’
    The child grinned, agreeing with her father.
    ‘My mummy is the best nurse in the entire world. When Uncle Michael was sick, she stayed up all through seven nights until he was better of a bad fever.’
    At the mention of his name, Megan’s memory picked up the threads of what had passed between them. Should she ask where he’d gone, and why? Her unspoken questions were answered by the little girl. ‘Mummy, when will Uncle Michael be back from Wexford with my pony?’
    ‘He didn’t say, pet.’
    ‘Sorry, Megan, in all the commotion I didn’t answer your question—my brother has gone home to Ireland. He seemed depressed and worried about something. He’d promised to spend New Year with us, still that’s him all over, can’t make up his mind about anything.’ Bridget then noticed for the first time the necklace around Megan’s neck. Her tone changed, and she shot forward, eyeing the trinket. Angrily she asked how a necklace that hung over Michael’s dressing table should be draped around her neck, ‘Did you steal it?’
    Nuala stopped her. ‘Mummy, Uncle Michael asked me to put the necklace into one of my little trinket boxes as a Christmas present for Megan. He said what a sin she should not get a present. Remember we gave Granny’s shawl to Mamma Foy? Yes, you do. Well, poor Megan didn’t get a thing. That’s why he gave her the necklace. Shame on you, Mummy, for thinking it was stolen.’
    ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise, forgive me.’ A blind man could see she was genuinely distraught.
    ‘Forget it, I’m a tinker and it’s not the first time I was blamed for stealing. First day I went to school the teacher said it was me who pinched her purse from her handbag. I was only six years old and wouldn’t have known what a purse was, but I can’t read nor write to this day because I was too afraid to go back. So don’t fret, but thank you once more for your charity and tending my wound. I’ll have to rush off now; Mother Foy’s been too long on her own.’
    Bridget ran off to the kitchen, returning with a large wicker basket bulging with eatables. Her clumsy attempt at covering her obvious sense of guilt caused her to drop things, prompting Megan to say, ‘Why don’t you visit with the old woman, give her those yourself. I’m certain in a day or two she’ll be ready for visitors.’
    Bridget for the second time felt her face blush with embarrassment, ‘Nuala would love to. You can tell her what Santa brought.’
    ‘Yes, Mummy, I can’t wait to be inside the story wagon again.’
    Stephen spoke. ‘Every time Mother Foy had Nuala to herself she’d sit her on a wee stool near the wagon stove, and tell stories of princesses, toady men, shape-changers and the likes, she just loved the tales.’
    ‘I knew another Irishman who when drunk would shout on the toady men and the little green goblins to get out of his tent. But he wasn’t surrounded by bairns, it was just the amber liquid sliding down his throat.’
    Stephen and Bridget laughed.
    Just as she was about to leave, the necklace came back to mind. ‘This isn’t yours, is it, Bridget? What I mean is, he didn’t give it me knowing it wasn’t his to give?’
    ‘Dear me, no, a man owed him money for a horse. He could only scrape half of what it was worth, so paid him the rest with some jewels. I’m glad to see a part of them round a female neck rather than in a box in his bedroom. It’s just that I saw that one and thought he was planning to give it to someone—I didn’t think of you. He spends his life with horses, it’s good to see him spend time with a pretty colleen, for sure.’
    Dare she ask when he might be back? The question was already formed in her mind, but she thought it best to show little interest, and bade them goodbye.

     
    Soon the buggy with brown leather seats was hitched, and she was being trotted back to the wagon in the gorse field. The creepy cloaked one had drifted into the innermost regions of her mind. ‘It must have been a dafty—some simpleton from a nearby village out to make a nuisance of himself,’ she thought. It was certainly nothing to bother about.
    The wind rose and lifted the fog. Sleepy sunshine covered the wagon with a yellow glow.