Domestic fiction; Ireland -- Fiction; Land tenure -- Fiction; Landlord and tenant -- Fiction; Landowners -- Fiction
Barry reiterated his promises; he would take the pledge; he would work
at the farm; he would marry and have a family; he would not care the
least for money; he would pay his debts; he would go to church, or
chapel, if Anty liked it better; at any rate, he’d say his prayers; he
would remember every word she had said to the last day of his life; he
promised everything or anything, as though his future existence
depended on his appeasing his dying sister. But during the whole time,
his chief wish, his longing desire, was to finish the interview, and
get out of that horrid room. He felt that he was mastered and cowed by
the creature whom he had so despised, and he could not account for the
feeling. Why did he not dare to answer her? She had told him he would
have her money: she had said it would come to him as a matter of
course; and it was not the dread of losing that which prevented his
saying a word in his own defence. No; she had really frightened him:
she had made him really feel that he was a low, wretched, wicked
creature, and he longed to escape from her, that he might recover his
composure.
“I have but little more to say to you, Barry,” she continued, “and that
little is about the property. You will have it all, but a small sum of
money—”
Here Anty was interrupted by a knock at the door, and the entrance of
the widow. She came to say that the quarter of an hour allowed by the
doctor had been long exceeded, and that really Mr Barry ought to take
his leave, as so much talking would be bad for Anty.
This was quite a god-send for Barry, who was only anxious to be off;
but Anty begged for a respite.
“One five minutes longer, dear Mrs Kelly,” said she, “and I shall have
done; only five minutes—I’m much stronger now, and really it won’t hurt
me.”
“Well, then—mind, only five minutes,” said the widow, and again left
them alone.
“You don’t know, Barry—you can never know how good that woman has been
to me; indeed all of them—and all for nothing. They’ve asked nothing of
me, and now that they know I’m dying, I’m sure they expect nothing from
me. She has enough; but I wish to leave something to Martin, and the
girls;” and a slight pale blush covered her wan cheeks and forehead as
she mentioned Martin’s name. “I will leave him five hundred pounds, and
them the same between them. It will be nothing to you, Barry, out of
the whole; but see and pay it at once, will you?” and she looked kindly
into his face.
He promised vehemently that he would, and told her not to bother
herself about a will: they should have the money as certainly as if
twenty wills were made. To give Barry his due, at that moment, he meant
to be as good as his word. Anty, however, told him that she would make
a will; that she would send for a lawyer, and have the matter properly
settled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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