The Collar Read Online Free Page A

Cait from you,’ said Tom.
    â€˜Cait!’ called Nora in a low voice, clearly glad to share such an embarrassing position. There was the same quick step upstairs and another girl came down. It was only afterwards that it struck Ned that he had never seen a more lovely creature. She had the same narrow face as her sister, the same slight features sharpened by an animal delicacy, the same blue eyes with the startled brightness, but her complexion was as fresh as morning and the blush that covered it made it seem fresher still. She entered the kitchen in the same embarrassed, hostile way.
    â€˜Have you nothing to say to me, Cait?’ asked the priest with a grin.
    â€˜Oh, a hundred welcomes before you.’ Her blue eyes rested on him for a moment with a fierce candour and penetration and then wandered past him to the open door. The rain was beginning to fall outside.
    â€˜Is that all?’
    â€˜How are you?’
    â€˜The politeness is suffocating you. Where’s Delia?’
    â€˜Here I am,’ said a low voice, and Delia was observed standing in the doorway, immediately behind him. It was so unexpected that everyone began to laugh. And then the silence fell again.
    â€˜The reason we called,’ said Tom, clearing his throat, ‘was this young brother of mine looking for a wife, and I told him I’d show him the three prettiest girls in Carriganassa.’
    â€˜Leave him take me,’ said Delia.
    â€˜Why? Aren’t there your two sisters before you?’
    â€˜Even so, I want to get up to Dublin … Would you treat me to lemonade, mister?’ she asked Ned. ‘This is a rotten hole. I’d go to America if I could.’
    â€˜You don’t have to make up your mind, Ned,’ said the priest. ‘Write and tell them. I have to be rushing not to keep my father waiting.’
    â€˜We’ll go with you,’ said Nora unexpectedly.
    The three girls took down three black shawls from inside the door.
    â€˜I’ll go under the shawl with you, Cait,’ said Tom.
    â€˜You will not,’ she said, starting back.
    â€˜She’d rather the young man,’ said Delia.
    â€˜She had enough of the other,’ said Sean.
    Cait looked at them both angrily and then began to laugh. She stretched out her shawl for Ned. Outside it was raining, a mild, persistent drizzle, and a strong wind was blowing. Everything had darkened and grown lonely about them, and under the blinding shawl Ned felt he had dropped out of Time’s pocket.
    They sat waiting in the Caheraghs’ kitchen. The old man sat in one chimney corner and the little boy in the other. The dim blue light poured down the chimney upon their heads with the delicacy of light on old china, and between them the fire burned a bright orange in the great white hearth and the rain fell softly, almost soundlessly outside the half door. The twenty minutes had already strung themselves out to an hour. Tom was again the life and soul of the company, but even he was clearly beginning to be anxious. Two of the little boys were sent off to search for Tomas. All the while Ned could scarcely take his eyes off Cait Deignan who with her elder sister occupied the form against the rere wall, the black shawl drawn across her chin, the white wall behind. Sometimes she caught his eye and laughed softly; then she sank back again into pensiveness. Pensiveness or utter vacancy? He found it hard to say, but while he looked at her narrow face with the animal instinctiveness of its over-delicate features he was seeing, as if painted, the half door, the rain falling, the rocks and hills and angry sea – all that had given it birth.
    The first to arrive was Red Patrick. After him came the island woman. Each of these had apparently last seen Tomas in different places. Then came Dempsey. Dempsey was glad the rain was falling. It would quiet the bay. The only question was, would Tomas be in a state to take a boat anywhere? Opinions