Part 5
The Hernando household was the only one in the scattered countryside that kept teatime. The half-hour before the late afternoon meal was a whirl of activity in the kitchen. Mrs. O’Brien was the solid, steadying calm at the center of the whirl of cooking and gossiping. Her thin, whip-like body cracked from oven to counter to pantry while she danced around daughters and granddaughters who were at their assigned stations and shooed aside a flock of the younger grandchildren who wandered about attracted by the scents and sounds of the kitchen. Older grandchildren were either helping their mothers or standing out of the way and waiting to report.
“Michael?” Mrs. O’Brien snapped at two young boys who were shoving each other in a barely controlled wrestling match. She fixed the one on the left with a hard gaze that ended the conflict immediately.
“It’s me, Daniel, Grammom,” said the boy, flinching as his twin snuck one last gouge in the ribs with an elbow. His mother looked up from the pastry board where she was making bread and flicked a dish towel at him with a practiced dexterity. It cracked against his wrist and the fight was well and truly over.
Mrs. O’Brien ignored the towel that zipped past her and turned fully to Daniel. “I told you to stay on the left side of our brother when I’m talking to you,” she said firmly.
“But you keep moving about, Grammom, and Michael won’t let me change sides. He tries to trip me.”
Mrs. O’Brien looked at Michael questioningly. Michael had arranged his face into a mask a cherubic innocence, while massaging a red welt on his wrist.
“I meant your left, boy, not mine. Oh, never mind. Just wear something blue, all right. And Michael, it’s brown for you.
“Oh, please, Grammom, green, not brown. Or red. I hate brown.”
“Yes, yes, green, it is. Now, Michael Green, since you two are here may I assume Miss is at home?,” Mrs. O’Brien asked.
Daniel was hoping she forget in all the confusion, but Grammom never forgot.
“Well?,” she repeated, pausing and focusing all of her attention on the boys. The boys swallowed. Michael considered faking a seizure, but before he could decide Daniel spoke up timidly. “No, Grammom, She’s still out on her visits.”
Mrs. O’Brien turned and walked over to the oven. She removed a tray of poppy seed muffins and closed the heavy iron door with more firmness than necessary. The boys flinched at the clank.
“I told you boys to keep an eye on Miss. I told you I wanted to know if Cupido bothered her.”
She spoke softly and deliberately. The boys wished she was yelling. Grammon had the unnerving habit of getting quiet and still when she was upset. She was getting very quiet and very still.
Daniel tried to explain, but the words tumbled out so haphazardly that he could barely organize them. ”But Grammom, we was watching her like you said and this bee flew by and Michael tried to catch it like he does you know and it stung him it stung him right on his thumb it did and he yelled like a big baby and Miss heard him and she told us to go away and stop following her or she’d carve us up like a Christmas turkey and she rattled that leather bag she always carries around with her and she kind of smiled but not friendly you know the other kind of smile the scary kind and well we ran away and Michael started crying and waving his thumb around.”
“I did not,” said Michael angrily.
“You did so, you big baby,” answered Daniel.
Their mother slammed the dough on the breadboard to silence the boys. They looked at their Grandmother who was shaking her head in amazement that God would think that two boys the exact age was a good idea. She began to speak to the twins in such a soft voice they had to strain their ears to hear.
“Things are going on around here I do not like. You know I promised her mother that I would look after Miss. If something happens to Miss, I suggest you boys go and find somewhere to live a long way away. Do you understand?”
The boys nodded. Their fear had turned to embarrassment. The boys dropped their chins onto their bony chests. Mrs. O’Brien sighed and shook her head. She looked over at Lucinda, her oldest daughter, the mother of the twins. Lucinda shrugged and turned her palms up. From mother to mother, the coded message flew. “They’re only ten year old boys,” it said.”What can you expect?”
Mrs. O’Brien put the muffins on the counter and turned away from the disgraced boys. As she walked away she said, “Have a muffin, you two. I expect you’re hungry. You always are. Mind your hands, they’re still hot.”
The boy’s heads shot up, stunned by their swift reversal of fortune. Michael leapt at the muffins. Daniel hung back and looked over to his mother. She smiled at him and gave him a little nod. He smiled back reassured and went to get his muffin. Mrs. O’Brien dismissed the boys. “Go to the dairy and get some milk, you lunkheads. And remember your colors.” The boys sped out of the kitchen, tossing the hot muffins from hand to hand, and arguing over who was blue and who was green. A few furtive kicks were passed and, as the din faded away, one of the boys yelled. “I want orange. Blue is for baboon butts.”
“Ah, yes, that must be Daniel,” thought Mrs.O’Brien, who was standing at the door watching the receding spectacle. “That boy reads far too much for his own good.”
Mrs. O’Brien shut the door and drank in the relative peace and quiet of a kitchen newly freed of young boys. She walked over to the long oak table and sat across from another grandchild, a slightly older cousin of the twins. She’d been shelling peas and watching her cousin’s tortures with obvious relish. When her Grandmother had turned her head during the interrogation of the boys, the girl had flicked peas at the them.
“Ethna? Are those peas from our garden?,” Mrs. O’Brien asked.
“Yes, Grandmother,” she answered a bit too sweetly to her Grandmother’s taste. “I picked them myself on the way in her.”
“That’s very odd. Do be careful with them, my dear,” said Mrs. O’Brien. “Some of them seem to have exploded and landed all the way across the room.”
Ethna’s cheerful smile crashed as realized that the old woman had caught her again. “I’ll clean them up, Grammom,” she mumbled.
“Later, dear. First I want to know about our hermit. It was your day to look in on him, was it not?”
“It was. I did. He seemed very excited. You know how the normally reads in his hut most of the day? Well today he sat outside and whittled six or seven diodarts. He sharpened that old file he stole from us on a piece of flint. Then he picked a bucketful of chokeberries. When he went to take his afternoon nap, I came back here.” Ethna reported the facts as swiftly and directly as she could in hopes of moving past the pea incident.
Mrs. O’Brien listened to the report while she set the table for tea. She waved Ethna over to a chair in the corner to finish her task. As she inspected the sandwiches that Rose, her youngest daughter, had made, she said, “Good job, Ethna. It’s nice to see some sense has made its way down to my grandchildren.” Ethna beamed. “Yes, he’s up to something that’s for sure.” She paused as if trying to remember something and then asked,” Are you certain they were chokeberries?”
“Oh, aye, Grammom. Chokeberries, nothing else,” said Ethna who was wishing that her cousins had been here to hear the praise.
Mrs. O’Brien turned her attention to Rose and asked, “How has the Don been today?”
Rose continued to make sandwiches and considered. “He slept a lot. He spent the night in the library as usual, dozing in that big chair of his, but he took a walk in the gardens for about an hour this morning while I cleaned. I looked in several times in the afternoon and he was sleeping. He is upset, I am certain. He didn’t touch his papers. But you know the Don, he doesn’t like to show he is upset.”
“How much did he drink?,” asked Mrs. O’Brien.
“Two, maybe three sherries.”
The door from the courtyard opened and a stocky man entered carrying a wicker basket of sausages. He plopped the basket on the floor and hugged Mrs. O’Brien. “Afternoon, mother O’Brien,” said Miguel. “Hello, Rose, Ethna.” He walked over to Lucinda and kissed her. She laughed and pushed him away, leaving floury handprints on his overalls. “And where are our useless boys?,” he asked in voice full of mock indignation. “Not helping you. Not helping me. Tell me again why we had those stomachs on legs.”
“We had them because I helped you once too often,” said Lucinda and they both laughed at the familiar joke.
“You know, I was thinking I could just use some help tonight,” said Miguel. His voice winked.
“If you don’t mind, there’s a young girl in here who I’m certain is rather confused by your little conversation and I’d like to keep her that way,” said Mrs. O’Brien primly.
Miguel laughed. “Not to worry, Mother O’Brien,” he said. “Ethna’s nearly twenty and I’ve seen the boys in town watching her. Soon you’ll be Great-Grammom O’Brien.” Ethna grimaced. She hated it when the old people joked about her.
Mrs. O’Brien smacked him with a spoon. “I don’t know why we put up you. Get those sausages off the the floor and hang them the pantry, then go wash up.”
“You put up with me because of my lovely sausage,” said Miguel.
Ethna snorted loudly. Everyone looked at her. “I don’t make that kind of joke, little one,” said Miguel softly. He and Lucinda exchanged looks and hoped that Ethna’s mother had had that little talk with her daughter.
“Is the tea ready, Mother?” asked Rosa, breaking the awkward silence.
“Nearly. Ethna, go tell Don Hernando tea will be served in five minutes. Ethna set the peas aside and headed toward the library, relieved to escape the old folks. “Before the Don gets here, Miguel, what did you find out about Cupido?,” asked Mrs. O’Brien.
“I spoke to Manuel from the inn and he told me that after Cupido left here last night he went to the inn and got drunk, well, more drunk. He spent the night there with those fancy friends of his. They’re all thieves and bullies, I tell you, but from good families so no one bothers with them. Cupido slept all morning and went home early in the afternoon. He’s been home since, as far I know,” Miguel reported without a trace of his normal joviality.
“What do you think he will do?” asked Mrs. O’Brien.
“It seems his friends at the inn were mocking him about his interest in Donna Maria,” continued Miguel. “A few of them suggested he just take the girl. They said they’d help him if he couldn’t handle her. They were laughing and saying that she is just an Annumpi and so he should just take her.” The bitterness in his voice rose as he reached his conclusion.
After a short pause while everyone was lost in their own thoughts, Miguel brought them back. “I have sent messages. Tonight I will talk to our men. This thing will not happen.”
“Enough for now,” said Mrs. O’Brien. “I can hear the Don in the hallway.”
The door from the hall opened and Don Hernando walked in. He smiled at everyone and sat down at the head of the table. Long ago, soon after his wife’s death, he had taken to eating in the kitchen with the extended O’Brien clan. It was scandalous, but he couldn’t help noticing that it was also much more agreeable than he and Maria eating in the huge dining room. The family chatter had helped Donna and eased his loneliness.
“Mrs. O’Brien, do be seated. How are you this lovely day?,” he asked.
“Fine, fine. Lovely day, you say?”
“Quite so. Do you mean you didn’t notice?,” he said.
“You know, how it is, sir. It’s difficult to keep up with the world when you rarely leave the kitchen.”
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