Scandal in Skibbereen by Sheila Connolly Page B

which didn’t help. They apparently thought the good life was going to go on forever. I guess a lot of people thought that until the bottom fell out after World War One. Actually Harry’s family was lucky that they’ve been able to hang on to the house this long. But the land around the manor’s all that’s left of the estate. Eveline is the last of her generation, and from what I hear, Harry’s having trouble enough keeping the roof over her head. To his credit, I’ve never heard talk of him trying to move her out of the only home she’s ever known, but aside from a few rooms, most of the place is closed up because they can’t afford to heat it, and of course it’s also falling down. The roof leaks, the plaster’s crumbling, and so on.”
    Maura shook her head. “This whole class thing is so sad and stupid. Why didn’t the Irish rebel against the way the Brits treated them? In America we fought back and forced them out. Why not Ireland?”
    “They did, but they weren’t very successful. You have to remember, until nearly the end of the nineteenth century, most of the Irish had no rights. They couldn’t own land. They couldn’t learn their own language. Your country is, what, a couple thousand miles away from England? It’s different when your oppressors’ seat of power is right next door. Here the British could all but spit at us. Do you not know that in the Famine, the landlords insisted that the Irish keep paying their rents and shipping the crops? When their tenants were starving?”
    Mick was as angry as she’d ever seen him. “I’m sorry, but how was I supposed to know?” Maura protested. Maybe it was time to get away from history and back to the present. “Harry has a job in Dublin, right? Gillian told me that he’s an accountant.”
    Mick took a moment to calm himself, then said, “She did, did she?”
    Maura debated asking Mick about Gillian’s relationship with Harry, but decided that would be tacky. Besides, he might not even know anything; men could be kind of blind about things like that. She went back to the topic at hand.
    “Mick, my question is, does any of this matter, here and now? Okay, you’ve got this big old house, even if it is falling apart, and you’ve got the last two heirs hanging on by their fingernails, with a couple of servants or whatever you want to call them. And now one of them has been killed. But do you think it has anything to do with class?”
    Mick shook his head. “Seems unlikely to me. No one cares anymore. A century ago, the gentry provided jobs for a lot of farmers’ children, particularly the girls. The boys would work on the land or in the stables, and the girls’d put in a few years in service here, and then they might emigrate, with a better chance of getting a job in an American city. That went on for a very long time. Didn’t I hear that your gran worked in the kitchen there as a girl?”
    “If so, she never mentioned it.” Like so many other things, Maura thought with regret. “In the U.S. she never did that kind of work, but she sure held her share of dead-end, low-pay jobs in Boston. So Harry is more or less the end of the line, any way you look at it?” When Mick nodded, she added, “Anyway, thanks, Mick, for filling me in. All this doesn’t show up in our high school history classes.”
    Mick smiled. “Fair enough. I think your Revolution gets about three pages in our textbooks.” He looked up to see a group of men coming in. “Welcome, fellas. What can I get you?”
    Maura set to work pouring more pints and serving, and the next time she looked up, it was three o’clock. Althea and Gillian hadn’t come back. Maybe Althea was promising Gillian a show of her own in a New York gallery, or maybe they’d cornered Harry somewhere and forced him to slip them into the manor house. No matter which, Maura felt a little left out. After all, she was the one who had put them together.
    Sean Murphy, in uniform, came in the door and crossed