Read Online Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy - Free Book Online

be very witty and make clients laugh. Often when they were leaving she heard them say that he was too human to be a lawyer. She had been worried about this and made two novenas that he should become less human in case he endangered the practice. Sometimes Fergus cleaned his own shoes – he didn’t think it was right to let a woman polish the black laced shoes that had been on his feet all day – but Miss Purcell didn’t like any changes in routine. She sniffed disapprovingly at his efforts and said she would prefer if he wouldn’t disgrace her in the town by going about with such ill-kept feet.
    It was said that Canon Moran had often looked with envy at the Slatterys and wished they would give him their housekeeper. The purse-faced Miss Purcell who kept such a good house would be indeed a delight compared to poor Miss Barry, but she had been there so long and had no other home to go to, so in Christian kindness Canon Moran couldn’t, and made no efforts to replace her.
    Miss Purcell was tall, thin and had a small face with two deceptively cheery-looking spots of red on her cheeks. These were not jolly ruddy cheeks, they were in fact two spots of colour whose redness increased according to how disapproving she was. At breakfast that morning they were very red indeed: a sure sign that something was about to blow up. Father and son avoided recognising this for as long as they could.
    ‘Do you want a bit of the
Independent
?’ Fergus’s father offered him the middle pages.
    ‘I wish we’d get the
Times
, it’s a better paper altogether,’ Fergus said. They were both avoiding the eye of Miss Purcell who stood ready to sound off.
    ‘Well it is and it isn’t, but nobody dies in the
Irish Times
. You don’t get the list of deaths in it like the
Independent
. A country solicitor needs to know who has died.’
    ‘Couldn’t we go into Leonard’s and sort of race down the deaths without buying the paper at all?’ Fergus suggested.
    ‘Fine thing that would be to do in a small town, depriving the Leonards of their income. Couldn’t the whole town do that? Couldn’t they come in here and look at our law books? Where’s the sense in that?’ Mr Slattery rattled his half of the paper in annoyance.
    Miss Purcell cleared her throat.
    ‘Mrs Ryan is here. A bit early I said to her but she seemed to think that you expected her before nine.’
    ‘Is that Marian Ryan come to make her will again?’ Old Mr Slattery looked over his glasses.
    ‘No, it’s Kate, Kate Ryan from the pub up the River Road,’ said Fegus. ‘Isn’t it, Miss Purcell?’
    ‘Oh yes, Mr Fergus, that’s the Mrs Ryan it is, all right. And if I might say . . .’
    ‘Yes, Miss Purcell?’ Fergus decided to take it manfully, whatever it was.
    ‘Mrs Ryan arrived five minutes ago with the information that she is going to be working here.’
    ‘That’s right,’ Fergus said cheerfully. ‘She’s going to start this morning. Well she’s nice and punctual, that makes a change from the rest of Mountfern.’
    ‘I can’t recall any occasion anything was late in this house . . .’ Miss Purcell began to bristle . . .
    ‘Oh not you, Miss Purcell, for heaven’s sake, everyone else.’
    ‘And what work will Kate Ryan from the pub be doing here, and why wasn’t I consulted?’ The spots on the cheek were dangerously red now. Even old Mr Slattery had put down his paper and was looking anxiously like an old bird from one to the other.
    ‘Well, lots of things, I hope.’ Fergus was still bewildered by this storm, and the sudden dropping of the Mrs Ryan, and changing it to Kate from the pub.
    ‘In nineteen years working for this house I have never had such treatment.’ Miss Purcell looked ten feet tall; she had drawn herself up into a long thin stick quivering with rage. ‘If my work was not to your satisfaction, the very least I would have expected was to be told. Instead of allowing me to be humiliated by seeing that Kate Ryan from the pub, come along