It was as crowded as the rest of the house, with women busily serving food or making it. The sounds and smells were of life here—kettles singing, soups simmering, a ham baking. Children wandered underfoot, so that women—with that uncanny maternal grace they seemed to be born with—dodged around them or scooped them up as needs demanded.
The wolfhound puppy that Tom had given Brianna on her last birthday snored contentedly under the kitchen table. Brianna herself was at the stove, her face composed, her hands competent Maggie could see the subtle signs of grief in the quiet eyes and the soft, unsmiling mouth.
"You'll have a plate." One of the neighbor women spotted Maggie and began to heap food together. "And you'll eat or answer to me."
"I only came in to help."
"You'll help by eating some of this food. Enough for an army it is. You know your father once sold me a rooster. Claimed it was the finest cock in the county and would keep me hens happy for years to come. He had a way with him, Tom did, that made you believe what he was saying even though you knew it for nonsense." She piled great portions of food on the plate as she spoke, taking time out to pat a child out of the way without breaking rhythm. "Well, a terrible, mean bird he turned out to be, and never crew once in his miserable life."
Maggie smiled a bit and said what was expected of her, though she knew the tale well. "And what did you do with the rooster Da sold you, Mrs. Mayo?"
"I wrung the cursed cock's neck and boiled him into stew. Gave your rather a bowl of it, too, I did. Said he'd never tasted better in his whole life." She laughed heartily and pressed the plate on Maggie.
"And was it?"
The meat was stringy and tough as old leather. But Tom ate every drop. Bless him."
So Maggie ate, because there was nothing she could do but live and go on. She listened to the stories and told some of her own. When the sun went down and the kitchen slowly emptied, she sat down and held the puppy in her lap. "He was loved," Maggie said. "He was." Brianna stood beside the stove, a cloth in her hand and a dazed look in her eyes. There was no one left to feed or tend to, nothing to keep her mind and her hands busy.
Grief swarmed into her heart like angry bees. To hold it off awhile longer, she began to put away the dishes.
She was slim, almost willowy, with a cool, controlled way of moving. If there had been money and means, she might have been a dancer. Her hair, rosy gold and thick, was neatly coiled at the nape of her neck. A white apron covered her plain black dress. In contrast, Maggie's hair was a fiery tangle around her face. She wore a skirt she'd forgotten to press and a sweater that needed mending.
"It won't clear for tomorrow." Brianna had forgotten the dishes in her hands and stared out the window at the blustery night.
"No, it won't But people will come, just the same, as they did today."
"We'll have them back here after. There's so much food. I don't know what we'll do with all of it . . ." Brianna's voice trailed off. "Did she ever come out of her room?" Brianna stood still for a moment, then began slowly to stack plates. "She's not well." "Oh God, don't. Her husband's dead and everyone who knew him came here today. She can't even stir herself to pretend it matters."
"Of course it matters to her." Brianna's voice tightened. She didn't think she could bear an argument now, not when her heart was swelling up like a tumor in her chest "She lived with him more than twenty years."
"And little else she did with him. Why do you defend her? Even now."
Brianna's hand pressed a plate so hard she wondered it didn't snap in two. Her voice remained perfectly calm, perfectly reasonable. "I'm defending no one, only saying what's true. Can't we keep peace? At least until we've buried him, can't we keep peace in this house?"
"There's never been peace in this house." Maeve spoke from the doorway. Her face wasn't ravaged by tears, but it was cold and hard and unforgiving. "He saw to that. He saw to it just as he's seeing to it now. Even dead, he's making my life a hardship."
"Don't speak of him." The fury Maggie had held back all day broke through, a jagged rock through fragile glass. She shoved away from the table, sending the dog racing for cover. "Don't you dare to speak ill of him."
"I'll speak how I choose." Maeve's hand clutched at the shawl she wore, drew it tight to her throat. It was wool, and she'd always wanted silk. "He gave me nothing but grief while he lived. Now he's dead and has given me more."
"I see no tears in your eyes, Mother."
"And you won't I'll neither live nor die a hypocrite, but speak God's own truth. He'll go to the devil for what's he's done to me this day." Her eyes, bitter and blue, shifted from Maggie to Brianna. "And as God won't forgive him, neither will I."
"Do you know God's mind now?" Maggie demanded. "Has all your prayerbook reading and rosary clacking given you a line straight to the Lord?"
"You'll not blaspheme." Maeve's cheeks reddened with temper. "You'll not blaspheme in this house."
"I'll speak how I choose." Maggie echoed her mother's words with a tight smile. "I'll tell you Tom Concannon needed none of your stingy forgiveness."
"Enough." Though her insides were trembling, Brianna laid a steadying hand on Maggie's shoulder. She took a long, careful breath to be certain her voice was calm. "I've told you, Mother, I'll give the house to you. You've nothing to worry about."
"What's this?" Maggie turned to her sister. "What about the house?"
"You heard what it said at the will reading," Brianna began, but Maggie shook her head.
"I didn't take any of it in. Lawyer's talk. I wasn't paying attention."
"He left it to her." Still trembling, Maeve lifted a finger and jabbed it out as an accusation. "He left the house to her. All the years I s
uffered and sacrificed, and he takes even that from me."
"She'll settle down right enough when she knows she has a sturdy roof over her head and no need to do anything to keep it," Maggie said once her mother left the room. It was true enough. And Brianna thought she could maintain the peace. She'd had a lifetime of practice. I'll keep the house, and she'll stay here. I can tend them both."
"Saint Brianna," Maggie murmured, but there was no malice in it "We'll manage it between us." The new furnace would have to wait, she decided. But as long as McGuinness kept buying, there would be enough to hold the two houses together.
"I've thought about ... Da and I talked about it a little while ago, and I've been thinking. . . ." Brianna hesitated.
Maggie pushed aside her own thoughts. "Just say it"
"It needs some fixing up, I know, and I've only a bit left of what Gran left me—and there's the lien."
"I'll be paying off the lien."
"No, that's not right"
"It's perfectly right" Maggie got up to fetch the teapot. "He took it to send me to Venice, didn't he? Mortgaged the house and weathered the gale Mother brought down on his head for doing it I had three years of training thanks to him. And I'll pay it back."
"The house is mine." Brianna's voice firmed. "And so's the Hen."
Her sister had a soft look about her, but Maggie knew Brianna could be mule stubborn when it suited her. "Well, we can argue that to death. We'll both pay it off. If you won't let me do it for you, Brie, let me do it for him. I've a need to."
"We'll work it out" Brianna took the cup of tea Maggie poured her.
"Tell me what you've been thinking."
"All right" It felt foolish. She could only hope it didn't sound so. "I want to turn the house into a B-and-B."
"A hotel!" Stunned, Maggie could only stare. "You want to have paying guests nosing about the place? You'll have no privacy at all, Brianna, and you'll be working from morning till night"
"I like having people around," Brianna said coolly. "Not everyone wants to be a hermit like you. And I've a knack for it, I think, for making people comfortable. It's in the blood." She stuck out her chin. "Granda ran a hotel, didn't he, and Gran ran it after he died. I could do it."
"I never said you couldn't, I just for the life of me can't see why you'd want to. Strangers in and out every day." Why, it gave her the shudders just to imagine it.
"I can only hope they'll come. The bedrooms upstairs will need freshening, of course." Brianna's eyes blurred as she thought through the details. "Some paint, some paper. A new rug or two. And the plumbing needs work, God knows. The fact is, we'd need another bath altogether, but I think the closet down at the end of the hall upstairs would serve. I might have a little apartment added off the kitchen here, for Mother—so she won't be disturbed. And I'd add a bit to the gardens, put up a little sign. Nothing on a grand scale, you see. Just small and tasteful and comfortable."
"You want this," Maggie murmured, seeing the light in her sister's eyes. "You truly do."
"I do, yes. I want it."
Then do it" Maggie grabbed her hands. "Just do it, Brie. Freshen your rooms and fix your plumbing. Put up a fine sign. He wanted it for you."
"I think he did. He laughed when I talked to him about it, in that big way he had."
"Aye, he had a grand laugh."
"And he kissed me and joked about me being an innkeeper's granddaughter, and following tradition. If 1 started small enough, I could open for summer this year. The tourists, they come to the west counties in the summer especially, and they look for a nice, comfortable place to spend the night. I could—" Brianna shut her eyes. "Oh, listen to this talk, and we're burying our father tomorrow."
"It's just what he'd want to hear." Maggie was able to smile again. "A grand scheme like that, he'd have cheered you on!"
"We Concannons." Brianna shook her head. "We're great ones for scheming."
"Brianna, that day on the cliff, he talked of you. He called you his rose. He'd want you to bloom."
And she'd been his star, Maggie thought She was going to do whatever she could to shine.