If You Were the Only Girl, page 12
‘You know she is only a young woman yet?’
‘She isn’t, Mrs O’Leary,’ Lucy cried. ‘She’s well over thirty.’
Clara hid her smile as she said, ‘She is thirty-five, the same age as myself, and I suppose you think that ancient, do you?’
‘Not ancient,’ Lucy conceded. ‘But not young either.’
And certainly far too old to have another stab at happiness and even think of marrying again, Clara thought, but she didn’t share that. It was better by far for her to see for herself how the land lay. So she said to Lucy, ‘Where is Declan staying?’
‘Well, I shouldn’t think there are many places in Mountcharles,’ Lucy said, ‘so he is staying at a place called McMullen’s on Bridge Street, Donegal Town, but he has hired a car so it is no distance away.’
‘Well,’ said Clara. ‘Maybe when you have had time to think it through you will feel differently about seeing Declan in your house.’
Lucy certainly hoped so. On the journey home she had examined not only the way she had behaved but also the things she had thought. She knew it was some sort of rogue trait in her that caused her to begrudge the things her siblings had been given that made their lives more bearable. And wasn’t it obvious that they were going to like and be grateful to their benefactor? It bothered her that, despite acknowledging this, a little nub of resentment against Declan McCann had lodged in her consciousness.
The following Sunday, Clara took the earliest rail bus running so that she was standing outside McMullen’s in Donegal quite early in the morning. Biddy McMullen looked at her with distaste when she asked if she could speak with Declan McCann.
She gave a sniff of disapproval as she said, ‘I don’t know that he is up yet. He never has breakfast on Sunday because of taking Communion.’
‘Maybe you could see?’ Clara suggested. ‘Or maybe I could—’
‘You will stay right where you are,’ Biddy McMullen snapped. ‘I don’t have any of that sort of carry-on in my house.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Clara said. ‘Declan McCann is a very old friend of mine and all I was suggesting doing was knocking his door.’
‘That’s my job,’ Biddy said sharply as she began mounting the stairs. ‘It is not seemly for women to knock at the bedroom doors of single men. What did you say your name was?’
‘Clara O’Leary,’ Clara said. ‘And I know he’d like to see me.’
And he did. Declan took the stairs two at a time, and when he reached the hall where Clara still stood, he threw his arms around her.
‘Clara O’Leary,’ he said, ‘it’s good to see you.’ Then he held her away from him and said, ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’
‘Oh, you old flatterer,’ Clara said with a laugh. She regarded Declan with approval. His eyes were as dark as she remembered their being, and his mouth as wide. He was a big man but not a fat one, and his skin had a glow of health about it. Even the silver streaks in his black hair didn’t age him at all. He looked what he was: a fit and prosperous man still in his prime. Clara knew that if he still held a candle for Minnie and told her, she would be mad to reject him.
‘Does Minnie know you are here?’ Declan asked.
‘No, I wanted to see you before I spoke to her.
‘That sounds ominous.’
‘No, not at all,’ Clara said. Then, catching sight of the landlady standing just behind the door and listening to their every word, she said, ‘Can we walk out somewhere?’
Declan nodded as he took his coat down from the peg in the hall, and led the way outside.
The door had barely closed when Clara said, ‘Lucy came to see me after her last visit. Did Minnie tell you she is a scullery maid at a big house in Letterkenny where I am housekeeper?’
Declan nodded. ‘She mentioned it. Well, let’s say Lucy’s visit was not an unqualified success.’
‘I know, but the girl got a terrific shock,’ Clara said. ‘I promised to come and see for myself. Declan, do you still love Minnie?’
‘As much as ever,’ Declan said earnestly. ‘Over the years I tried to forget about her, but it was impossible. No one matched up to her but I would have done nothing if Seamus had been here, as I thought he would be. I said hurtful things to Seamus when I left. I came to make my peace. I would never have wanted to cause either of them pain.’
‘I know.’
‘When I saw the state the whole family was in, regardless of how I felt about Minnie, I would have helped them for Seamus’s sake,’ Declan said. ‘When I saw her so wan and downtrodden I was pierced to the soul.’
‘What happens when you leave, as you must one day?’
‘I have taken a year off,’ Declan said. ‘I hadn’t intended that when I left. I thought of staying just a month or two, but when I saw how badly off Minnie was I knew she needed help.’ He stood on the road and faced Clara. ‘I will be straight with you. What I really want is to marry Minnie and take proper care of her and the children, and take her home to the States with me. But she has refused me before, so this time I want to go real slow and be more patient. My brothers understand this because they knew how cut up I was after losing Minnie to Seamus all those years ago.’
They began walking, for it was too cold for standing.
‘If despite everything she does refuse to marry you a second time, what will you do?’ Clara asked.
‘Go back to the States and settle some money to be sent to her every month,’ Declan said. ‘I don’t want her reduced to such destitution again, nor the children, because they have really got under my skin.’
‘That will settle Lucy’s mind,’ Clara said. ‘Because she was worried about that.’
They turned back to the lodgings so that Declan could collect his car.
‘I don’t intend to rush Minnie,’ he said. ‘I know she dearly loved Seamus and I wouldn’t disrespect his name by speaking before she is ready but, if she accepts me, I will be the happiest man in the world and love her till the breath leaves my body.’
Clara felt tears prick her eyes at the sincerity in Declan’s words and truly hoped that Minnie would take this second crack at happiness, and that after a gentle, undemanding courtship, Minnie would agree to marry such a kind and generous-hearted man. Unfortunately, Clara had forgotten about the Catholic Church, which seemed to worry ceaselessly about the moral fibre of its flock.
Minnie couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw her good friend Clara climb out of Declan’s car. She flew down the steps as the children launched themselves on Declan. As Clara hugged Minnie, she was glad that she had lost the skeletal thinness she once had.
‘Oh, Clara,’ she cried. ‘It is so good to see you.’
‘And I you,’ Clara said. ‘In fact, it is good to see all of you.’
The children looked healthier, and were warmly clad too, and the whole place looked much sprucer. They caused more than a little consternation when they walked to church, and Clara noticed the malevolent looks some of the women shot them and felt the first stirrings of alarm. Neither Minnie nor Declan seemed to notice anything, and so Clara resolved to say nothing, half hoping that she had imagined the animosity.
After Mass they were glad to reach the cottage, for the day was raw, and, as soon as she did so, Clara felt assailed by the heat from the blazing fire. The low-slung grey clouds had darkened the sky and there was little light coming through the small window, but the Tilley lamps had been lit, one on the mantelpiece and one on the table already set for breakfast, and she knew that lighting the lamps in the daytime would once have been a luxury that Minnie would not have allowed herself. Now they lent a cheerful glow to the room and made it feel cosy and snug.
There were things Lucy had not told Clara when she’d spoken about her visit home: about how her family were preparing for Christmas. The room was festooned with streamers and the hearth was decorated with garlands of plaited holly with a Nativity scene on the mantel shelf. A fairly large and bushy Christmas tree stood by the window. It was threaded with tinsel and sparkly glass baubles that glittered and shimmered in the light from the fire and the lamps, the heat causing them to spin a little. The tree was further adorned with candles that, Minnie told her, they lit every evening, and a beautiful angel was fastened to the top.
The effect was lovely and very seasonal. Clara opened her mouth to say this but Minnie forestalled her.
‘Grand, isn’t it?’ she said as she began layering rashers of bacon in the pan and Declan helped Clara off with her coat. ‘Tell you the truth,’ Minnie went on, ‘I don’t know who was the more excited, Declan or the children.’
Declan had a broad smile on his face as he said, ‘Ah, but you must allow me my moments of silliness. I am a bachelor and so I have never celebrated Christmas with a family before and seen delight on the faces of children.’
The delicious smell of frying bacon was in the air and Grainne cut slice after slice of soda bread and fetched a tub of yellow butter from the press, and the boys brought chairs and soon they were all sitting down to a big feed.
As they ate, they talked together and the years fell away as they reminisced. Clara couldn’t remember when she had enjoyed a day so much. Minnie and Declan were easier together than many married couples she knew, Clara observed, and yet she wasn’t sure if Minnie loved Declan enough to marry him, or was just grateful for his kindness.
Christmas in Windthorpe Lodge was quite a miserable affair. The meals sent out from the kitchen were just as good as they had been the previous year, but Lord and Lady Heatherington were so anxious about Clive that their worry seemed to permeate everywhere. A few meagre decorations were put up by Evie and Norah, but the tree that Jerry decorated was a poor specimen, for Jerry hadn’t Clive’s flair. Lucy saw it for the first time on her way to the library to collect her Christmas box on Christmas morning and thought the one at home in the cottage in Mountcharles looked much finer.
In the little cottage in Mountcharles, none of the gaiety was forced, for the children were beside themselves with excitement. Declan stayed the night on Christmas Eve, cramped up in the opened-out settle, because he wanted to see the children’s faces when they found the stockings he had encouraged them to hang up were now filled to overflowing. In each one there was an orange and an apple, a bag of sweets, a chocolate bar and a thrupenny bit. And then in Danny’s was a penknife with lots of gadgets, which Declan had seen him hankering after in Donegal, and a baseball bat sticking out of the top. Grainne had a paint box and a small sketchbook sticking out of hers. Liam had a whip and top and a big bag of marbles that Declan promised to teach him to play, and Sam had a selection of small toy cars and a wooden garage laid out on the floor.
For Minnie, Declan had a big parcel, and when she opened it she was rendered speechless with pleasure, for it was a thick black winter coat with a fur collar, and folded inside was a fur hat to match and black sheepskin mittens. ‘Oh, Declan, thank you so much,’ Minnie said when she was able to speak. Tears prickled her eyes at his kindness. She didn’t let them fall, however. Christmas was not the time for tears.
They had to hurry for Mass, and as they went in together, many heads were turned to look at them and more than a few women viewed Minnie disapprovingly, especially as she was wearing such an obviously new and very fine coat. Minnie paid no heed to any of them and slipped out of Mass before Father McGinty could ask awkward questions, and home to a good big breakfast and to open the presents from Lucy.
After that, Minnie began to prepare the dinner, helped by Grainne, while Declan had a kickabout with the boys using the football Lucy had given Liam. The day continued to be wonderful. None of them could recall a better Christmas Day, and it filled Minnie’s heart with joy to see such happy faces.
Two days after Boxing Day, Clara received a letter from Minnie. With a smile, she took it to her room, settled herself comfortably with a small glass of sherry and prepared to read of the wonderful Christmas her friend had enjoyed.
Initially, Minnie did just that, starting at Christmas Eve, when Declan helped her fill the children’s stockings. She went on to explain that it had got so late and, anyway, Declan wanted to see the children’s faces when they saw the presents, that they opened out the settle and he spent the night there. Clara smiled when she read that, for she knew that Declan was far too big a man to be truly comfortable on a settle, which was usually where the children would sleep. She had no inkling, though, of how this might be misconstrued. Minnie spoke of the children’s delight at their presents the following morning and her own at the coat and accessories that Declan had bought for her, which she had worn to Mass. The first stirrings of concern came when Minnie wrote:
I saw some of the women looking at me malevolently but I thought them jealous. I never thought it anything more sinister.
However, it was hideously far more menacing than that, and Clara felt the blood run like ice in her veins as she read on.
Then early on Boxing Day the priest and a hefty nun appeared at the door to remove the children to protect them for what they claimed were my immoral ways.
Clara gave a gasp. God Almighty! She knew the power the clergy had, and was well aware that they really could remove Minnie’s children. She’d heard of it before, and on the flimsiest evidence of any wrongdoing by their mothers, and, once taken away, usually those mothers never saw them again. It was obvious Minnie knew this too, for she continued:
Declan had forgotten the hold the priests and the Catholic Church have on this country, but I should have thought, for it is how their minds work. They said I had a man who was unrelated to me here at all hours of the day and even staying through the night. The only one that knew Declan stayed Christmas Eve night would be Biddy McMullen, and I bet she had gone hotfoot along to tell the priest. I tried to tell them that the reason Declan had stayed the night on Christmas Eve, but they wouldn’t listen. They said I had shown scant regard to the Catholic Church and even Jesus Christ himself by flaunting around in a fancy coat and hat I could never have afforded to buy myself to attend Mass on the holiest day of the year, and even go to the rails for Communion, and all without a hint of shame. And when I said the coat was a present, they intimated that it was for services rendered. I was, they said, ‘judged and found wanting, and so not fit to have the care of impressionable young people’.
Tears ran down Clara’s cheek as she read of her friend’s despair at the thought that she might lose her children. She felt her heartache keenly.
Oh, God, Clara, if they had taken my children, I wouldn’t have wanted to go on. Danny, who had been up at Haycock’s farm, was on his way home and, thank God, Declan arrived when he did because they had all the others in the car though they fought like wildcats. The priest had locked the boys in the back and I could hear them screaming and kicking the back of the car, and the nun manhandled Grainne, and she was kicking out at her legs and sobbing in fear while the priest prevented me from getting near them.
I was beside myself by then, screeching at them both and scared rigid, but Declan was just so angry, I thought he was going to kill the priest. He shook him like a rat and said if he ever came here again, his cloth wouldn’t save him. I knew, though, the threat was an empty one because the next time the priest would come – and there would be a next time, for they never give up – they would probably bring the guards, and neither Declan nor I could do a thing about it then.
Even when the priest and nun had left, I was a nervous wreck. The vitriolic and unjust abuse thrown at me by both nun and priest had hurt me more than blows would have done, and I felt bruised and battered and absolutely drained. The children had been badly frightened and were all in a state, even Danny, who felt a bit responsible that he hadn’t been there to try and protect us.
We talked it over and over but really what Declan said was true. The only way for him to be able to keep us all safe was for us to marry. I was shocked, for Seamus is hardly cold, and then I never let myself feel anything for Declan but friendship, because I knew one day he would be going back to the States. Added to this, he had never given me any indication he felt for me in any way other than as an old friend. But then, Clara, you could have knocked me down with a feather because he said he loved me as much as he ever had.
Clara smiled grimly because it had been obvious how Declan felt about Minnie, but she imagined the shock he had felt, arriving in Mountcharles to find his good friend dead and the girl he loved not that long widowed. It wouldn’t have been right at all to talk about his feelings but the events of Boxing Day had changed everything. She returned to the letter.
And he said that I shouldn’t worry about my feelings for him too much, for deep liking for someone often comes before loving and he was prepared to take a chance on that. Marrying him, though, would mean that I would have to leave behind all that is familiar to me. I must say I felt suddenly saddened, when I realised this because I had been born and bred in Mountcharles and had never thought I would have to leave it. I thought of friends and neighbours I’d known for years and how kind and supportive many had been when Seamus was sick. I thought of the people who helped me when I cultivated the garden, telling me what seedlings to buy and how to tend them. I remembered the kindness of the man who gave me a present of the chickens, and the shop who used to let me barter my produce for essential items I couldn’t grow and Farmer Haycock who had kept Seamus on long after he was of any use to him and now found work for Danny. And then I remembered that it would be some of those same neighbours who carried tales to the priest. Without Declan, the clergy would have taken my children from me and I knew then I would never feel safe in Ireland again and I doubt the children would either. It was far better for us all to start a new life with such a caring, considerate person as Declan McCann, and so we are to be married. Will you please try and explain this to Lucy, though I am writing to her as well? She might feel bad about it because Seamus has not been dead that long, but it really is the only way.
Clara sighed as she got to her feet. She fully understood the dilemma that Minnie had found herself in and really she had taken the only course of action she could. She never mentioned the word ‘love’ and maybe she didn’t truly love Declan but would marry him to keep her and her children safe. Well, Clara reasoned, many had married a man for poorer reasons than that, and at least Declan was a decent man who would treat them all right, and love could always grow. She wished, though, Minnie hadn’t got to go to America, for it was one hell of a long way away and she would probably never see her again once she left.
