Two Houses (Preview)
By Judith Cullen
© 2015
“Mark, the top
has to be here somewhere!”
Mark Murphy
glanced at the tourist map one more time, but it might as well have been
written in Greek for all the sense it made to him. “I know, we both saw it.” He paused, lowering his voice, “I should have
asked for directions, I’ll admit it.”
Cate turned to
him indulgently, “I’ll take that admission, and I won’t abuse you with it. Not much, anyhow.” Then she laughed and threw her head back in
that way he loved.
This was part
of why he had married her – life was just that much brighter, that much “more”
when Cate was around. Like now, when
they were lost in Ireland
on their honeymoon, looking for a hilltop they had both seen clearly from the
front lawn Rathmore House. It had seemed
like such a natural thing to spend their honeymoon exploring their mutual Irish
heritage. They were inexperienced as world travelers, at best, and they really
should have done more homework than they had.
Still and all adversity can lead to adventure, and so far they had
shared that in abundance.
“Look
here! This lane seems to go up. This could be promising. Let’s try it and see
where it goes.” She was pointing towards
a disheveled gate and a scraggly lane of trees leading uphill. What waited at
the end of the lane was not clearly in view.
“You call this
‘promising’?” He eyed the gate and the
road that left the main track and disappeared to God only knew where. It was a single metal gate between two square
stone pillars. They might have been
nicely finished once, with an outer coating of sandstone or something to dress
them. The metal had a few vestiges of
ornamentation left – tiny metal swirls and flourishes. But one of the pillars was almost entirely
crumbled away, and the gate hung from the remaining pillar by a single hinge. Squinting his eyes, Mark wasn’t even sure of
that. He had the feeling that the gate
was held there by habit alone, not by any actual constructive attachment.
Cate was
already clambering through the space on the crumbled pillar side of the gate,
and she paused half way over and turned to look back at him. The clear light of the March sun reflected
off the highlights in her hair and played across her amused face. She looked like a pixie, off to some
mischief. “Come along now! Let’s see where this goes. It’ll be fun!”
Mark looked at
the respectable road, and at Cate poised atop the stones and laughed despite
himself, “All right Catherine Fitzgerald, but if we end up behind bars for
trespassing I will not hesitate to remind you whose idea this was.”
“That’s Catherine
Fitzgerald Murphy, if you please. Surely
I don’t need to remind you of that!” She
gave him an intimate, knowing wink that crinkled her nose and she jumped from
her stony perch to the other side.
He followed
and, as he landed, bumped right into her.
She had stopped and was looking around with a frown. “It’s really not very well kept, is it?”
The presence
of the gate did more to define it as a road than the actual road itself. The trees lining each side of the track must
have once formed a stately avenue. Now they were unkempt. Great limbs had
fallen, littering the ground, and hanging in the air as loose snags everywhere.
Some thin, disreputable looking sheep were wandering in the field beyond. There was bracken and tall grass growing with
abandon. If the gate had not been there,
breaking up the barrier of the stone wall, they might not have even noticed the
track at all. Cate grabbed Mark’s hand and stepped forward along the path.
Cate had
always been "spontaneous," and she knew it. It had gotten her into trouble since she was
a little girl: Cate stuck in a tree and can’t get down; Cate bawling with two
skinned knees because she had strapped on her brother's skates and had fallen;
Cate calling her Dad from a phone booth in a convenience store parking lot,
begging him to come and bring her home because the handsome boy who seemed so
gallant when he’d asked her out had turned out not to be. Cate had tried to change, but she just
couldn’t manage it. Somehow her curious,
spontaneous nature always asserted itself and before she could say “hold on
there, girl!” there she was again, in some sort of mess.
That’s what
she loved about Mark. He always made her
feel safe. He was so steady and
grounded. He let her drag him into one
thing or another with only the mildest of objections. Somehow, there was no mischief she could get
them into that he couldn’t get them out of.
She squeezed his hand tighter for just a moment. She loved the look of their two hands
entwined. She smiled brightly at him as
she pulled him along the path.
They saw
nothing but decay, disuse, and neglect all around them. “Do you think anyone owns this land?” she
asked.
“If they do,
they don’t care much about it,” he replied, remembering that he had read that
some people bought estate property just for the acreage, letting the buildings
and other features go to ruin.
“Good
God! What’s that?” Cate rushed ahead, up
the path.
“What’s what? Cate! Wait a minute!” He ran after her . . .
***
"Two Houses" will be published as a part of A TRIO OF IRISH TALES II, Coming to Amazon for Kindle and in Paperback in less than a week.
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