Grandmother and the Priests
interest, but it was not a personal interest. She almost welcomed the rows so that she could go to Grandmother’s at Leeds, where the house was filled with beguiling treasures, a parrot or two to be teased and observed from a safe distance, an air of luxury, and, always, Grandma’s vivid if not affectionate presence and Grandma’s strange and exotic guests. Besides, Grandma had a cook of an expansive nature whom little Rose found very comforting, and who could be relied upon for dainties from Grandma’s table and bonbons and glazed chestnuts and candied ginger and exquisite tartlets. And Grandma’s gardens, even in winter, were mysterious with mist and silence and wild birds and rooks, and, above all, there were no wrangling parents.
     
    Rose often said to her husband, William McConnell, “I remember a time at Grandma’s in 1904. (She always insisted I call her Grandmother, however; it seemed to her less aged than ‘Grandma’, and much less dull and suety.) I remember . . .”
     
    Her first memory of Leeds, England, and Grandmother Rose Mary O’Driscoll Cullen’s house, was when she was just under four years of age and a row had blown up at home. Her parents packed a bag for her, put her on a train by herself, and returned home to do unrestrained battle. Grandmother’s carriage and coachman met her, silently, at the station in Leeds, and in silence they drove to Grandmother’s house. Rose recalled that first lonely occasion very sharply. The dun-colored streets were awash with cold and sooty rain; water splashed on the roof of the carriage. Lights drifted by as they passed lonely houses, and the air was full of the stench of coal gas, wet leather and wool, and smoke. The horse clopped along on the cobblestones. The darkness came down heavily and the carriage lurched from side to side. Rose’s hands were numbed with cold, even in their gloves. She listened to the boom of the wind against the carriage, the far wailing of it as it rushed westwards. She was not frightened, nor even lonely, for she was accustomed to loneliness. Carriages passed, their lanterns lit. Once one of those new and rowdy motorcars charged around the carriage, startling the horse, and causing the coachman to curse and threaten with his whip. The gutters chattered; the stones of the street glistened in lamplight. But Rose was excited; she was on her first visit to Grandmother’s and to the mysterious world in which that legendary figure lived.
     
    The house was very large and lighted at almost every window, and there was a reflection of red and flickering firelight on draperies not yet drawn. The building had a little portico with about four white, round wooden pillars and a broad fan of brick steps leading to the door from the street. The coachman, with a sour look, opened the carriage door for Rose. Then he was moved to some kindness for the forlorn little girl. He swung her up in his arms with a hearty word, and his rough chin and check scraped her face. He carried her up the steps and said cheerily, “There you be, little miss,” put her down, banged the knocker, and returned to the carriage for her luggage. In the meantime a smart, uniformed maid stood on the threshold, staring without favor. “A kid in the house,” she mumbled, and pulled Rose inside smartly. “Behave yourself, and no trouble,” she warned. Grandmother was entertaining at dinner, and there was no time for any greeting. The unfriendly maid pushed Rose irritably up an immense stairway of white wood and velvet carpeting, and then into a long hall filled with closed doors. A lamp burned at its farther end, the light enclosed in a crimson globe. The maid opened the door of a small and arctic bedroom, and lit a candle. Rose saw the big bed with its canopy, its horsehair chairs, its little green slipper love seat, its empty fireplace, its Brussels rug, its blue velvet draperies looped back over fine lace curtains.
     
    “Have you had your tea?” asked the maid,

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