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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Family & Friends
- Subject: Biography / Autobiography
- Published: 01/15/2014
TEA AND CHRONICLES
Born 1969, M, from Herten, NRW, GermanyTEA AND CHRONICLES
Haunted Geneology, the American Way
Excerpt from the book “DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!”
By the Late, Great Herbert Eyre Moulton
Most everyone we knew agreed that we in our family were at our very best when working in tandem or as a trio. Then, even a casual exchange over a cup of tea could lead to a saga of epic proportions, or a brief ding-dong battle. Visitors had to know the routine well enough not to take any of it too seriously and be able to adjust to any sudden changes: only the very strong and agile could hope to keep up with us. Those who could, were getting a supplementary education for free. Those who couldn’t, simply dropped by the wayside, wondering which truck or bus had hit them.
Typical was a teatime session sometime in the late 1930’s, sometime close to Halloween, when a spinster friend of ours name Edith (Ede for short) dropped by the same afternoon as Scotty, an American Legion buddy of my Dad’s. Herbert Lewis Moulton had served for the U.S. in France as a soldier during the first world war. Scotty was a regular in our soup kitchen and often came to chat about old times.
On this day, however, he got drawn into one historical discussion worthy of any history book. What started as light conversation turned into in-depth historical chit-chat and finally meandered into spooky “Halloween”-worthy tales about family ghouls.
As the evening went on, the conversation got eerier, the candles were lit and we remembered Ireland. We remembered the local ghouls and we remembered the past.
My mom Nell was presiding at the tea table, doing her Gracious-Hostess-Number. On a regular basis, my father, whom we called Big Herb, chimed in with anecdotes and insights. I remember that the conversation was even more labyrinthine and surrealistic than usual and I shall try to reproduce it in dialogue form, which may be the easiest ... and the safest.
EDE: Did you bake this cake, Mrs. Moulton? It’s gorgeous.
NELL: Dear, everything you see on this table was baked by me, including that pound cake. I just add a glass of that Madeira wine to get it up on its feet.
SCOTT: All of Nell’s bakery goods are well over 100 percent proof.
EDE: And the recipe? Where’s it from?
NELL: Ask little Herbert here.
BIG HERB: Little Herbert sells the magazines here and keeps track. Works for the Curtis Publishing Company, you know.
EDE: He works? At his age?
ME: It’s only a magazine route, Dad.
NELL: And don’t I know it? Delivers every week. Everybody adores him.
ME: On my new Schwinn 28-inch bike. Super.
NELL: Except when he is sick with one of his colds, poor lamb. That’s when Henrietta and I take over for him.
BIG HERB: Our Studebaker Sedan, at least ten years old and still going strong, thanks be to God.
ME: Twelve years, Dad. 1927.
SCOTT: A great year: Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Dempsey and Gene Tunney.
EDE: Al Jolson in “The Jazz Singer”
SCOTT: Al Capone ... and Herbert Moulton.
ME: The Saturday Evening Post, that’s our best seller by far.
NELL: Why not become a subscriber, Ede? Well worth a try.
EDE: Well, I’m on this budget, you see ...
NELL: Applesauce! It’s the oldest magazine in America, founded by George Washington, our very first president.
BIG HERB: In Boston, am I right?
ME: Philadelphia, Dad. And it wasn’t Washington. It was Ben Franklin.
NELL: Oh, I must be confused. That’s right, Ben Franklin. And Philadelphia was where Mother Moulton’s family hails from. Herbert’s dear little grandmother. She was one of the founders of our women’s club, you know.
ME: AND the D.A.R. The chapter here, that is.
NELL: Oh, you have to have to have a pedigree that long to get a look in with those old bags. Maria Ross Moulton, that was her maiden name, and that’s Maria, as in Black Maria. ME: And the Ross is from a famous cousin of hers: Betsy Ross.
NELL: The one who ran up the first American flag, sewed it, that is.
BIG HERB: Of course, they didn’t have sewing machines in those days, did they?
ME: No, the first sewing machine was invented by ...
SCOTT: Lemme guess! Mr. Singer!
ME: No, Scott, the first sewing machine was invented by Josef Mattersberger in Vienna, Austria in ... uh ... about 1814, only he didn’t have enough money to get a patent on it, so he never got credit for it. Nor any money, either, poor guy.
EDE: Gee, talk about bad luck.
NELL: Come on, kids, I want to see every last bite eaten up. Go ahead and gouge yourselves. Yes, Cousin Betsy, that’s what they all call her. A direct descendent.
ME: No, Mom, you mean ancestor. And she couldn’t be a descendent ‘cause she never married. We’re connected by ...
NELL: Never married, like dear little Ede here. We’ll just have to do something about that, Edith dear, get you married off.
EDE: Please don’t bother, Mrs. Moulton. I’m just not interested.
NELL: Horsefeathers, dear. There’s nothing like a man of your own to keep you warm on a winter’s night.
BIG HERB: Thank you ...
NELL: You’re welcome.
EDE: Not as long as my little old hot water bottle still functions.
SCOTT: She’s got to be kidding. For one thing, a hot water bottle gets cold so easy.
EDE: And a man?
SCOTT: Uh ... I see what you mean.
EDE: So stop fussing about me, Mrs. Moulton. I’m just fine.
NELL: Dear, do call me Nell. Or Nellie. No, I hate that name ever since I was a little girl on Paulina Street. This one day I heard a woman calling out: “Nellie, Nellie, come here to me!” So I hustled over to her she took one look at me and said: “No, not you, little girl. I mean THAT Nellie over there.” And she pointed to a dirty miserable yellow mongrel of a pup. I never got over it. (To Scott, who is laughing.) T’ain’t funny, McGee.
ME: I just figured it out. The Ross we’re related to is Samuel Ross, Betsy’s cousin. Oh, we have ancestors all over the place. Or do I mean descendents? Relatives, anyway. It’s a pretty mixed-up family. At least, I am right now.
NELL: But if you think Big Herb’s family is something, wait until you hear about mine. The Eyres of Eyrecourt, whose family name was given to us by William the Conquerer sometime in the 11th century. Our ancestor saved the king’s life, you know?
SCOTT: Really?
NELL: Yes. The king, reportedly, said: You have given me the air to breathe. Henceforth, you shall be called Eyre. Actually, it was spelled Heir back then. H-E-I-R.
ME: County Galway, the West of Ireland.
NELL: Eyrecourt Castle.
SCOTT: Your family lived in a castle?
NELL: Two castles. Today they are haunted ruins.
EDE: Haunted? Ruins?
NELL: Yes, dearie. Echoes from a strange, spooky past.
SCOTT: Reverberation from a lost era, huh?
NELL: More than that, honey. There is one single shutter on one of the ruins that bangs open and shut all day regardless of weather. Bang, bang, bang. Over and over. People come from all around to see the old thing.
BIG HERB: There is an old legend that there was a fierce storm one night, shortly before the family moved away from Ireland. It was one that kept everyone awake all night. The shutters are remainders of that night, still banging shut and flinging open.
EDE: I think I am going home.
SCOTT: No, this is fun. Continue. Please.
NELL: In the estate of the current Eyre family mansion, there is even a story of ghosts banging with cutlery and pots and pans and God knows what else in the wee-hours of the morning. The locals accept it as remnants of a lost era, when rich aristocrats populated the estate. By Jove, they have to accept it. The ghouls are always there.
EDE: It is getting dark, Nell. Don’t scare little Herbie.
ME: I love ghost stories. I don’t mind.
NELL: (laughing) I know Herbert loves them. He slips under the covers with his radio after hours, when he is supposed to be sleeping, and listens to that awful radio programme: The Hermit’s Cave. What was that last show called? The one that I caught you listening to?
ME: Spiders of Doom, Mom.
NELL: I’m pouring myself some Tullamore Dew, I think. Anyone want to join me?
EDE: No, thanks. Castles. I can just see those elegant aristocrats pacing the hallway in their beautiful dresses. Your family is quite extraordinary, Mrs. Moulton! Even with all those ghoulish tales. Wouldn’t you like to be an aristocrat?
NELL: And who, pray, has a better right? Ede, did you ever happen to read “Jane Eyre”? The famous novel?
EDE: We had it in college. Marvelous. Mindboggling.
NELL: Charlotte Bronte. They lived just up the River Shannon from the Eyres. There’s this secret tunnel a mile long leading down to the River so they could smuggle their booze into the country without paying any duty on it.
SCOTT: What a neat idea!
EDE: The Brontes had a secret tunnel so they could smuggle liquor?
NELL: No, dear, not the Brontes, for God’s sweet sake. And she wasn’t a Bronte any more. She’d married. Oh, use your noodle, please! Papa’s family, the Eyres of Eyrecourt, famous topers all, starting with the Baron ...
ME: Lord Eyre, or “Stale Eyre” as they called him because he had all the windows shut ...
SCOTT: Hold on, everyone. Those shutters, maybe the banging of those shutters came from old “Stale Eyre” and his constant isolation. The castle wants the air to soar in there.
ME: Wierd. Wierd and wonderful.
NELL: Whatever it was, he used to sit there, drinking that same wine all day long, in the gloom of that huge old dining hall, not uttering a word ...
ME: ... while one of his servants cut him off a slice off that big beef that hung there, and himself constantly moistening the human clay with his favorite wine ...
NELL: Claret. From France someplace ... Wouldn’t you just know it?
SCOTT: “Moistening the human clay”? Where’d that come from?
ME: Oh, that was in a book my Uncle Duke, Mom’s brother, found in a bookshop in Dublin, Ireland, when he was over there, trying to find out about the family.
NELL: And tell him who first said it, Little Herbert.
ME: A visitor to the Eyrecourt Castle wrote about this visit he had made there back in the 1700’s sometime. An evangelist of some kind. It’s all in the book.
EDE: It wasn’t John Knox, was it? B-r-r-r.
ME: No, he was earlier in Scotland.
NELL: Wasn’t he the old fossil who was so horrible to poor little Mary, Queen of Scots? Shame on him! I hope he rots in Hell. Have another cookie, someone.
ME: Yes. I mean, no. This was John Wesley I was talking about. 1775, I think.
SCOTT: Herbie, you are a regular Quiz-Kid!
EDE: Like having a Walking Encyclopedia right here at home. I’ll just bet he’s at the top of the Honor Roll in School, am I right?
(That was rather thin ice we were skating on at the moment.
Quick, somebody, change the subject!)
NELL: No, Edith, dear, there you’re wrong. Dead wrong, alas. Not once, not one single solitary time, with all his intelligence. I believe he’s almost proud of the fact, perverted as it sounds. But we won’t go into that. Mustn’t spoil the afternoon. Dear Lord in Heaven, what kind of hostess am I at all, at all? High time we had something a little stronger than tea to drink.
SCOTT: Now you’re talking, Nell!
EDE: Well, you’re already having some Tullamore Dew.
NELL: A relative from County Connemara brought it over here last year, when she visited to Glen Ellyn. Little Herbert, fetch some glasses in the kitchen, won’t you? And something for yourself.
ME: Right-O, Mom! (Out to the kitchen on the double)
NELL: Please join us for a Halloween drink, Ede.
EDE: I don’t know.
BIG HERB: Just one.
ME: (Balancing the glasses on a tray) Some whiskey-glasses for all of you and a glass of juice for me.
NELL: (pouring the drinks) Something to wet the palette.
EDE: Let’s get back to the haunted ruins.
BIG HERB: She’s beginning to like those ruins.
EDE: When were the castles deserted?
NELL: The first one, 15 years ago. The other one earlier. Uncle Duke says they were all ... what’s the word? Profligates, that’s it. Profligates.
SCOTT: A million dollar word. What’s it mean?
BIG HERB: It meant they were spendthrifts and wasters.
NELL: Here they were, one of the most famous families in Ireland, settled there by the King of England, for heaven’s sake, with authors naming their heroines after them. There’s even Eyre Square in the heart of Galway City. My brother Marmaduke was there. What did they do? Throw it all away. Drinking, gambling, God knows what all.
BIG HERB: One of them, Wild Sam, had to have himself carried out of Dublin in a casket, so his creditors wouldn’t nab him.
NELL: Thank God that I am reasonably domesticated. Oh, then there was Giles. Our Great-great-great-something-grandfather, Duke’s and Bess’s and mine, the worst of the lot. Tell them about that hotel, Big Herb.
BIG HERB: The one they burned down just for laughs? (Chuckles) Well, after a wild party there, these regency bucks they were called, set fire to Dooley’s Hotel in Birr. It’s famous.
(Author’s note from 1999: I had the joy of singing a concert in Birr in 1968. Me and my wife Gun Kronzell kicked it off by sayiyng: “My ancestors burned down the hotel here in this town many years ago. I am so sorry about that!” Needless to say, we were a success.)
ME: That was one way to get out of paying the bill, I guess.
NELL: That’s a good one, little Herb. I will have to remember that one. The Galway Blazers were named after them. Fox-hunting team or something equally daft.
BIG HERB: Or the assisinity of horse’s neckties.
ME: Mom, didn’t they have something they called Hellfire Clubs? Big parties with lots of food and dancing girls and so on?
NELL: Yes, they did. Barely clothed, at that. Witch craft. Terrific carry-on.
EDE: (gulps down her drink) And these were all relatives of yours? Wow ...
SCOTT: Sounds like fun to me. Oh, I beg your pardon, Nell. Always said I was born in the wrong century.
NELL: Have some more Irish magic juice to keep the spirits up.
SCOTT: What kind of spirits are we talking about?
NELL: The spirits of the ancestors, of course. The fairies, as well, of course. Mustn’t forget them.
ME: Fairies?
BIG HERB: They are provocative, too, aren’t they?
NELL: Well, they farmers of West Ireland believe that certain field must be kept untouched. The fairies live there and if you disturb them, the cows die and the milk spoils. If you dare to cross the field, you wander in limbo for a few hours until you fall asleep, haunted by the fairies.
EDE: Some more Irish magic juice for me, too. It sure hits the spot, this Irish spirit.
ME: Imagine having such a famous family. Witchcraft, parties, kings, ghosts, gambling, pyromania. Wow. What’s next?
BIG HERB: See that you don’t follow their example, young man!
EDE: Oh, really. As if he could.
NELL: Well, just watch yourself, Buster, that’s all, spirits or no. Aristocrat, that’s what Mama always used to say to us. “Your father was an aristocrat, children, an Eyre of Eyre Court,” and what he do? When I was born, he took one long look at me and went off on a six-week toot. He wanted a boy, you see, and they’d already lost two. But no, he had to produce an heir. An heir to what, I’d like to know.
EDE: An heir?
SCOTT: An Eyre heir, get it?
EDE: I don’t believe this! It’s like a movie.
NELL: Poor Mama. When he died of pneumonia, one of his six week bats, she had to raise us three children all on our own. (Deep Nell-sigh:) Poor Mama.
EDE: She sounds like the aristocrat of family, if you ask me.
NELL: That’s what we’ve always said. This dear little peasant girl from Connemara, her mother spoke only Gaelic, were so ashamed. Wasn’t that awful?
BIG HERB: You want to tell them what that English lexicon said about them.
ME: The book with all the Lords and Ladies?
NELL: Yes, Burke’s Peerage. My brother discovered this fact, as well, in his family detective work. They list all these children of these aristocrat snobs. After Papa’s name, Henry Lee Eyre, they only put ‘d. young’. That means ‘died young’. He didn’t die young, dammit. God forgive me, he married that poor little peasant girl right there in St. Louis, Missouri.
SCOTT: I wonder if Henry’s spirit is still with us.
ME: Of course he is here. I mean, his grandchild bears his name: Eyre.
EDE: What about the Irish fairies? Have they travelled over the ocean, as well?
BIG HERB: (looks at Nell) Yes, they have. But this one is very kind and very safe.
SCOTT: Aww. Yes, indeed. Nell is a good fairy.
EDE: Indeed. No, I mean, they infamous ones from that field.
NELL: Dears, it is getting dark. The kids have this new custom of knocking on doors and saying ‘Trick or treat’. It’s been going on for a few years. Little Herbie hear wants to dress up as Bela Lugosi.
ME: Boris Karloff, Mom.
NELL: Ah, yes. Of course. Frankenstein’s monster.
BIG HERB: Let’s light a few more candles.
NELL: I know what, my dears. We will look into the flames, have some more Irish magic juice and see if we find the real aristocrat of the family there.
SCOTT: The peasant girl, your mom.
BIG HERB: Then Little Herb can put on his spooky costume and knock on some doors. Maybe there will be a candy bar or two waiting for you out there, son.
ME: You know, looking into those candles and listening to these ghost stories actually beats ‘Trick or treat’-ing. The spirit of Halloween is ... what, mom?
NELL: (embraces as many of the people at the table as she can) Cuddling up, listening to a scary story, in order to just come that much closer to each other in order to see that family and friends mean more than anything in the world.
No wonder people loved coming to our house.
As I said, for those who could stay the course, it was an education in itself.
TEA AND CHRONICLES(Charles E.J. Moulton)
TEA AND CHRONICLES
Haunted Geneology, the American Way
Excerpt from the book “DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!”
By the Late, Great Herbert Eyre Moulton
Most everyone we knew agreed that we in our family were at our very best when working in tandem or as a trio. Then, even a casual exchange over a cup of tea could lead to a saga of epic proportions, or a brief ding-dong battle. Visitors had to know the routine well enough not to take any of it too seriously and be able to adjust to any sudden changes: only the very strong and agile could hope to keep up with us. Those who could, were getting a supplementary education for free. Those who couldn’t, simply dropped by the wayside, wondering which truck or bus had hit them.
Typical was a teatime session sometime in the late 1930’s, sometime close to Halloween, when a spinster friend of ours name Edith (Ede for short) dropped by the same afternoon as Scotty, an American Legion buddy of my Dad’s. Herbert Lewis Moulton had served for the U.S. in France as a soldier during the first world war. Scotty was a regular in our soup kitchen and often came to chat about old times.
On this day, however, he got drawn into one historical discussion worthy of any history book. What started as light conversation turned into in-depth historical chit-chat and finally meandered into spooky “Halloween”-worthy tales about family ghouls.
As the evening went on, the conversation got eerier, the candles were lit and we remembered Ireland. We remembered the local ghouls and we remembered the past.
My mom Nell was presiding at the tea table, doing her Gracious-Hostess-Number. On a regular basis, my father, whom we called Big Herb, chimed in with anecdotes and insights. I remember that the conversation was even more labyrinthine and surrealistic than usual and I shall try to reproduce it in dialogue form, which may be the easiest ... and the safest.
EDE: Did you bake this cake, Mrs. Moulton? It’s gorgeous.
NELL: Dear, everything you see on this table was baked by me, including that pound cake. I just add a glass of that Madeira wine to get it up on its feet.
SCOTT: All of Nell’s bakery goods are well over 100 percent proof.
EDE: And the recipe? Where’s it from?
NELL: Ask little Herbert here.
BIG HERB: Little Herbert sells the magazines here and keeps track. Works for the Curtis Publishing Company, you know.
EDE: He works? At his age?
ME: It’s only a magazine route, Dad.
NELL: And don’t I know it? Delivers every week. Everybody adores him.
ME: On my new Schwinn 28-inch bike. Super.
NELL: Except when he is sick with one of his colds, poor lamb. That’s when Henrietta and I take over for him.
BIG HERB: Our Studebaker Sedan, at least ten years old and still going strong, thanks be to God.
ME: Twelve years, Dad. 1927.
SCOTT: A great year: Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Dempsey and Gene Tunney.
EDE: Al Jolson in “The Jazz Singer”
SCOTT: Al Capone ... and Herbert Moulton.
ME: The Saturday Evening Post, that’s our best seller by far.
NELL: Why not become a subscriber, Ede? Well worth a try.
EDE: Well, I’m on this budget, you see ...
NELL: Applesauce! It’s the oldest magazine in America, founded by George Washington, our very first president.
BIG HERB: In Boston, am I right?
ME: Philadelphia, Dad. And it wasn’t Washington. It was Ben Franklin.
NELL: Oh, I must be confused. That’s right, Ben Franklin. And Philadelphia was where Mother Moulton’s family hails from. Herbert’s dear little grandmother. She was one of the founders of our women’s club, you know.
ME: AND the D.A.R. The chapter here, that is.
NELL: Oh, you have to have to have a pedigree that long to get a look in with those old bags. Maria Ross Moulton, that was her maiden name, and that’s Maria, as in Black Maria. ME: And the Ross is from a famous cousin of hers: Betsy Ross.
NELL: The one who ran up the first American flag, sewed it, that is.
BIG HERB: Of course, they didn’t have sewing machines in those days, did they?
ME: No, the first sewing machine was invented by ...
SCOTT: Lemme guess! Mr. Singer!
ME: No, Scott, the first sewing machine was invented by Josef Mattersberger in Vienna, Austria in ... uh ... about 1814, only he didn’t have enough money to get a patent on it, so he never got credit for it. Nor any money, either, poor guy.
EDE: Gee, talk about bad luck.
NELL: Come on, kids, I want to see every last bite eaten up. Go ahead and gouge yourselves. Yes, Cousin Betsy, that’s what they all call her. A direct descendent.
ME: No, Mom, you mean ancestor. And she couldn’t be a descendent ‘cause she never married. We’re connected by ...
NELL: Never married, like dear little Ede here. We’ll just have to do something about that, Edith dear, get you married off.
EDE: Please don’t bother, Mrs. Moulton. I’m just not interested.
NELL: Horsefeathers, dear. There’s nothing like a man of your own to keep you warm on a winter’s night.
BIG HERB: Thank you ...
NELL: You’re welcome.
EDE: Not as long as my little old hot water bottle still functions.
SCOTT: She’s got to be kidding. For one thing, a hot water bottle gets cold so easy.
EDE: And a man?
SCOTT: Uh ... I see what you mean.
EDE: So stop fussing about me, Mrs. Moulton. I’m just fine.
NELL: Dear, do call me Nell. Or Nellie. No, I hate that name ever since I was a little girl on Paulina Street. This one day I heard a woman calling out: “Nellie, Nellie, come here to me!” So I hustled over to her she took one look at me and said: “No, not you, little girl. I mean THAT Nellie over there.” And she pointed to a dirty miserable yellow mongrel of a pup. I never got over it. (To Scott, who is laughing.) T’ain’t funny, McGee.
ME: I just figured it out. The Ross we’re related to is Samuel Ross, Betsy’s cousin. Oh, we have ancestors all over the place. Or do I mean descendents? Relatives, anyway. It’s a pretty mixed-up family. At least, I am right now.
NELL: But if you think Big Herb’s family is something, wait until you hear about mine. The Eyres of Eyrecourt, whose family name was given to us by William the Conquerer sometime in the 11th century. Our ancestor saved the king’s life, you know?
SCOTT: Really?
NELL: Yes. The king, reportedly, said: You have given me the air to breathe. Henceforth, you shall be called Eyre. Actually, it was spelled Heir back then. H-E-I-R.
ME: County Galway, the West of Ireland.
NELL: Eyrecourt Castle.
SCOTT: Your family lived in a castle?
NELL: Two castles. Today they are haunted ruins.
EDE: Haunted? Ruins?
NELL: Yes, dearie. Echoes from a strange, spooky past.
SCOTT: Reverberation from a lost era, huh?
NELL: More than that, honey. There is one single shutter on one of the ruins that bangs open and shut all day regardless of weather. Bang, bang, bang. Over and over. People come from all around to see the old thing.
BIG HERB: There is an old legend that there was a fierce storm one night, shortly before the family moved away from Ireland. It was one that kept everyone awake all night. The shutters are remainders of that night, still banging shut and flinging open.
EDE: I think I am going home.
SCOTT: No, this is fun. Continue. Please.
NELL: In the estate of the current Eyre family mansion, there is even a story of ghosts banging with cutlery and pots and pans and God knows what else in the wee-hours of the morning. The locals accept it as remnants of a lost era, when rich aristocrats populated the estate. By Jove, they have to accept it. The ghouls are always there.
EDE: It is getting dark, Nell. Don’t scare little Herbie.
ME: I love ghost stories. I don’t mind.
NELL: (laughing) I know Herbert loves them. He slips under the covers with his radio after hours, when he is supposed to be sleeping, and listens to that awful radio programme: The Hermit’s Cave. What was that last show called? The one that I caught you listening to?
ME: Spiders of Doom, Mom.
NELL: I’m pouring myself some Tullamore Dew, I think. Anyone want to join me?
EDE: No, thanks. Castles. I can just see those elegant aristocrats pacing the hallway in their beautiful dresses. Your family is quite extraordinary, Mrs. Moulton! Even with all those ghoulish tales. Wouldn’t you like to be an aristocrat?
NELL: And who, pray, has a better right? Ede, did you ever happen to read “Jane Eyre”? The famous novel?
EDE: We had it in college. Marvelous. Mindboggling.
NELL: Charlotte Bronte. They lived just up the River Shannon from the Eyres. There’s this secret tunnel a mile long leading down to the River so they could smuggle their booze into the country without paying any duty on it.
SCOTT: What a neat idea!
EDE: The Brontes had a secret tunnel so they could smuggle liquor?
NELL: No, dear, not the Brontes, for God’s sweet sake. And she wasn’t a Bronte any more. She’d married. Oh, use your noodle, please! Papa’s family, the Eyres of Eyrecourt, famous topers all, starting with the Baron ...
ME: Lord Eyre, or “Stale Eyre” as they called him because he had all the windows shut ...
SCOTT: Hold on, everyone. Those shutters, maybe the banging of those shutters came from old “Stale Eyre” and his constant isolation. The castle wants the air to soar in there.
ME: Wierd. Wierd and wonderful.
NELL: Whatever it was, he used to sit there, drinking that same wine all day long, in the gloom of that huge old dining hall, not uttering a word ...
ME: ... while one of his servants cut him off a slice off that big beef that hung there, and himself constantly moistening the human clay with his favorite wine ...
NELL: Claret. From France someplace ... Wouldn’t you just know it?
SCOTT: “Moistening the human clay”? Where’d that come from?
ME: Oh, that was in a book my Uncle Duke, Mom’s brother, found in a bookshop in Dublin, Ireland, when he was over there, trying to find out about the family.
NELL: And tell him who first said it, Little Herbert.
ME: A visitor to the Eyrecourt Castle wrote about this visit he had made there back in the 1700’s sometime. An evangelist of some kind. It’s all in the book.
EDE: It wasn’t John Knox, was it? B-r-r-r.
ME: No, he was earlier in Scotland.
NELL: Wasn’t he the old fossil who was so horrible to poor little Mary, Queen of Scots? Shame on him! I hope he rots in Hell. Have another cookie, someone.
ME: Yes. I mean, no. This was John Wesley I was talking about. 1775, I think.
SCOTT: Herbie, you are a regular Quiz-Kid!
EDE: Like having a Walking Encyclopedia right here at home. I’ll just bet he’s at the top of the Honor Roll in School, am I right?
(That was rather thin ice we were skating on at the moment.
Quick, somebody, change the subject!)
NELL: No, Edith, dear, there you’re wrong. Dead wrong, alas. Not once, not one single solitary time, with all his intelligence. I believe he’s almost proud of the fact, perverted as it sounds. But we won’t go into that. Mustn’t spoil the afternoon. Dear Lord in Heaven, what kind of hostess am I at all, at all? High time we had something a little stronger than tea to drink.
SCOTT: Now you’re talking, Nell!
EDE: Well, you’re already having some Tullamore Dew.
NELL: A relative from County Connemara brought it over here last year, when she visited to Glen Ellyn. Little Herbert, fetch some glasses in the kitchen, won’t you? And something for yourself.
ME: Right-O, Mom! (Out to the kitchen on the double)
NELL: Please join us for a Halloween drink, Ede.
EDE: I don’t know.
BIG HERB: Just one.
ME: (Balancing the glasses on a tray) Some whiskey-glasses for all of you and a glass of juice for me.
NELL: (pouring the drinks) Something to wet the palette.
EDE: Let’s get back to the haunted ruins.
BIG HERB: She’s beginning to like those ruins.
EDE: When were the castles deserted?
NELL: The first one, 15 years ago. The other one earlier. Uncle Duke says they were all ... what’s the word? Profligates, that’s it. Profligates.
SCOTT: A million dollar word. What’s it mean?
BIG HERB: It meant they were spendthrifts and wasters.
NELL: Here they were, one of the most famous families in Ireland, settled there by the King of England, for heaven’s sake, with authors naming their heroines after them. There’s even Eyre Square in the heart of Galway City. My brother Marmaduke was there. What did they do? Throw it all away. Drinking, gambling, God knows what all.
BIG HERB: One of them, Wild Sam, had to have himself carried out of Dublin in a casket, so his creditors wouldn’t nab him.
NELL: Thank God that I am reasonably domesticated. Oh, then there was Giles. Our Great-great-great-something-grandfather, Duke’s and Bess’s and mine, the worst of the lot. Tell them about that hotel, Big Herb.
BIG HERB: The one they burned down just for laughs? (Chuckles) Well, after a wild party there, these regency bucks they were called, set fire to Dooley’s Hotel in Birr. It’s famous.
(Author’s note from 1999: I had the joy of singing a concert in Birr in 1968. Me and my wife Gun Kronzell kicked it off by sayiyng: “My ancestors burned down the hotel here in this town many years ago. I am so sorry about that!” Needless to say, we were a success.)
ME: That was one way to get out of paying the bill, I guess.
NELL: That’s a good one, little Herb. I will have to remember that one. The Galway Blazers were named after them. Fox-hunting team or something equally daft.
BIG HERB: Or the assisinity of horse’s neckties.
ME: Mom, didn’t they have something they called Hellfire Clubs? Big parties with lots of food and dancing girls and so on?
NELL: Yes, they did. Barely clothed, at that. Witch craft. Terrific carry-on.
EDE: (gulps down her drink) And these were all relatives of yours? Wow ...
SCOTT: Sounds like fun to me. Oh, I beg your pardon, Nell. Always said I was born in the wrong century.
NELL: Have some more Irish magic juice to keep the spirits up.
SCOTT: What kind of spirits are we talking about?
NELL: The spirits of the ancestors, of course. The fairies, as well, of course. Mustn’t forget them.
ME: Fairies?
BIG HERB: They are provocative, too, aren’t they?
NELL: Well, they farmers of West Ireland believe that certain field must be kept untouched. The fairies live there and if you disturb them, the cows die and the milk spoils. If you dare to cross the field, you wander in limbo for a few hours until you fall asleep, haunted by the fairies.
EDE: Some more Irish magic juice for me, too. It sure hits the spot, this Irish spirit.
ME: Imagine having such a famous family. Witchcraft, parties, kings, ghosts, gambling, pyromania. Wow. What’s next?
BIG HERB: See that you don’t follow their example, young man!
EDE: Oh, really. As if he could.
NELL: Well, just watch yourself, Buster, that’s all, spirits or no. Aristocrat, that’s what Mama always used to say to us. “Your father was an aristocrat, children, an Eyre of Eyre Court,” and what he do? When I was born, he took one long look at me and went off on a six-week toot. He wanted a boy, you see, and they’d already lost two. But no, he had to produce an heir. An heir to what, I’d like to know.
EDE: An heir?
SCOTT: An Eyre heir, get it?
EDE: I don’t believe this! It’s like a movie.
NELL: Poor Mama. When he died of pneumonia, one of his six week bats, she had to raise us three children all on our own. (Deep Nell-sigh:) Poor Mama.
EDE: She sounds like the aristocrat of family, if you ask me.
NELL: That’s what we’ve always said. This dear little peasant girl from Connemara, her mother spoke only Gaelic, were so ashamed. Wasn’t that awful?
BIG HERB: You want to tell them what that English lexicon said about them.
ME: The book with all the Lords and Ladies?
NELL: Yes, Burke’s Peerage. My brother discovered this fact, as well, in his family detective work. They list all these children of these aristocrat snobs. After Papa’s name, Henry Lee Eyre, they only put ‘d. young’. That means ‘died young’. He didn’t die young, dammit. God forgive me, he married that poor little peasant girl right there in St. Louis, Missouri.
SCOTT: I wonder if Henry’s spirit is still with us.
ME: Of course he is here. I mean, his grandchild bears his name: Eyre.
EDE: What about the Irish fairies? Have they travelled over the ocean, as well?
BIG HERB: (looks at Nell) Yes, they have. But this one is very kind and very safe.
SCOTT: Aww. Yes, indeed. Nell is a good fairy.
EDE: Indeed. No, I mean, they infamous ones from that field.
NELL: Dears, it is getting dark. The kids have this new custom of knocking on doors and saying ‘Trick or treat’. It’s been going on for a few years. Little Herbie hear wants to dress up as Bela Lugosi.
ME: Boris Karloff, Mom.
NELL: Ah, yes. Of course. Frankenstein’s monster.
BIG HERB: Let’s light a few more candles.
NELL: I know what, my dears. We will look into the flames, have some more Irish magic juice and see if we find the real aristocrat of the family there.
SCOTT: The peasant girl, your mom.
BIG HERB: Then Little Herb can put on his spooky costume and knock on some doors. Maybe there will be a candy bar or two waiting for you out there, son.
ME: You know, looking into those candles and listening to these ghost stories actually beats ‘Trick or treat’-ing. The spirit of Halloween is ... what, mom?
NELL: (embraces as many of the people at the table as she can) Cuddling up, listening to a scary story, in order to just come that much closer to each other in order to see that family and friends mean more than anything in the world.
No wonder people loved coming to our house.
As I said, for those who could stay the course, it was an education in itself.
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