Page 12 of The Road to Cavan Town
They’ll be gone quick enough if yadropthem.Isaac looked to Miss Kilchrest. Surely she’d see the difficulty and give Billy permission to set down his load. She watched Billy and his tray with misgivings, but made no move to intervene.
Alice seemed to have noticed the difficulty. She abandoned her teacakes and crossed toward them.
Isaac whispered quickly to Billy. “Set the glasses down. Better that then letting them slip.”
Billy’s hands only grew shakier. His face turned equal parts pale and red. “She’s wearing her mean eyes.”
Isaac, himself, took a step back at the hardness in Miss Kilchrest’s expression.
“You bumbling fool,” she hissed at Billy. “Anything you break will come out of your wages.”
’Twas the first time Isaac had ever heard Miss Kilchrest speak sharply to anyone. Though he’d had more than a few uncharitable thoughts where Billy Kettle was concerned, he found he didn’t at all like Miss Kilchrest’s reprimand.
Billy’s face crumbled. “I don’t have money. I can’t pay for it.”
“Ya won’t have to.” Alice had arrived in time to carefully take the tray from Billy’s hands. She set it on an obliging table without the tray shaking in the slightest.
Miss Kilchrest set her hands on her hips and waited not a single moment after Alice turned back before correcting her. “He’ll not be paid for work someone else is doing for him.”
Alice didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate. “He was not hired to serve yer guests drinks. Yer housekeeper was told in detail of his limitations. If ya have objections to how he performed this duty that was not his own, ye’d best take it up with that bothersome woman.”
Miss Kilchrest’s face pulled tight. Who was this sour woman?
“How dare you speak to me that way.” She spoke through clenched jaw. “I do not pay servants to be insolent.”
Alice managed to look down her nose at Miss Kilchrest, despite being shorter. “And the pitiful sum I’m being paid to be here tonight is not worth yer shrew’s tongue. Good night to ya, Miss Kilchrest. Happy Christmas and all that.”
Isaac knew a moment of pride hearing her speak with such strength of purpose. Alice was no wilting flower to shrivel at the slightest difficulty. A country lass, she was.
“Come, then, Billy. We’ll take up the matter of yer wages with the magistrate if we must.”
Billy’s tall frame bent under what looked like embarrassment and disappointment. Alice took off her frilly apron and pressed it into Miss Kilchrest’s hands before walking away with Billy, her hand resting on his back.
Isaac glanced back at Miss Kilchrest. Her gaze settled uncomfortably on Mr. Byrne. “I told mother not to hire that man. He’ssimple, you know. That kind always bumbles everything.”
He’ssimple. That kind always bumbles everything. That kind.The words repeated in his thoughts as he walked away from the Kilchrests’ party. Many of his neighbors were simple people, though not in the same way. They were the very best Ireland had to offer, the salt of the earth. Would Miss Kilchrest hiss at and insult them for their simplicity? Would she turn his home into a place where none of his neighbors or family would feel welcome?
Miss Kilchrest had added to Billy’s pain. Alice had come immediately to his rescue.
Miss Kilchrest hadn’t cared in the least about the flowers he’d given her a few week’s back. Alice had smiled sweetly at the simple wild bloom he’d picked for her at the lake.
He’d spent four months trying to be the person Miss Kilchrest would notice and care for. In those same four months he’d never needed to be anything but himself with Alice.
His walk through Cavan Town drove home two indisputable truths.
Pursuing Miss Kilchrest had been a mistake from the beginning. And he’d been in love with Alice Wheatley for months but was too much of a fool to have realized it.
Chapter Six
Alice hoped Miss Kilchrest’s behavior had been enough to warn off Isaac. She’d been too upset, herself, to stay and talk sense into the man. That he’d come immediately to Billy’s defense despite not understanding his circumstances only further endeared Isaac to her. He was a good man, no matter how misguided his matrimonial ambitions.
She packed her small satchel and pulled on her heavy woolen coat. ’Twas a cold Christmas morning, perfect for staying tucked in bed curled up under the blankets. But ’twas also a Sunday and Alice had no choice but to step out into the weather and make her trek back to the farm where she worked.
The hour was early, an approach she’d adopted weeks earlier after her falling out with Isaac. Avoiding him was easier, kinder on her too tender heart. That morning there’d be no Billy to see her off. He’d been nearly in tears by the time she’d delivered him home. His Da had thought it best to not wake him that morning, and not to find him work at the Kilchrests’ again.
Alice slipped her satchel over her shoulder. She wound a thick scarf about her neck and tied her battered bonnet tight on her head. She couldn’t hide in the warmth of her grandparents’ house forever.
The air hung heavy and cold as she stepped out on to the streets of Cavan. A cold and lonely Christmas Day, indeed. If only men weren’t so infernally blind and stubborn, she might have been spending her Christmas morning with Isaac at her side rather than missing him as she was.
