No Peace for Amelia (3 page)

M
ary Ann fished out her packet of letters. She'd
always
kept them under the floorboards in the last house she'd worked in, because she was afraid the authorities might want to burn them for fear of infection. Now that she'd moved to Casimir Road, she continued the habit, even though it was almost two years since her mother's death, and the danger of infection had long passed. On her first night in this house she'd used a
nail-file
to prise up a floorboard and made a dusty little nest under it for her precious documents. She didn't often disturb the letters in their hiding place. She liked to keep them, for sentimental
reasons
, but she didn't often reread them, because they only made her sad. Her mother had died a lonely death of consumption in a home for
incurables
, cut off from the children she loved and visited only by charitable strangers. The small children were kept away for fear of contamination, Mary Ann didn't 
have the free time to go and see her, her eldest child, Patrick, was in prison, and her husband, Mary Ann's
father
, couldn't afford the tram-fare.

This evening, as she bent to loosen the floorboard, Mary Ann was not planning to read over her mother's last letters, but rather to add a new letter to the bundle. With a shaking hand she pulled out the crumpled and beloved bundle and undid the old bootlace that held the letters together. As she did so, the letters fell into her lap with a soft sigh. Just then, a mating cat mewled and screamed somewhere beyond Mary Ann's window, which was open to the spring night, and the sound made the girl jump. The sudden movement caused a tidal wave in the folds of her apron, and the precious letters went skittering and slithering to the floor.

‘Christmas in the workhouse!' Mary Ann swore her mother's favourite curse and bent down to pick up the letters. Now she'd be forced to open them all to check the dates, as she liked to keep them in order. There were about a dozen, and as she opened each envelope, stray words and phrases from the body of the letters caught Mary Ann's eye, try as she would not to read the content: ‘Tell your Da to put Jimmy in the middle of the bed, so the others keep him warm …' (for Mary Anne's father was illiterate, and her mother could only keep in touch with him through messages to Mary Ann), ‘the nuns are very good …', ‘porridge for breakfast …', ‘Remind the small ones to say a prayer for their poor Ma …', ‘bad pain
in my chest …', ‘Don't let your Da get into debt …', ‘You're a great girl …', ‘I'm feeling a bit better today, thank God.'

Mary Ann gulped when she read that bit. It was from the very last letter, written two days before her mother died. She folded the letter quickly and stuffed it back into its envelope, and laid it on top of the bundle. Then she put her latest letter on top of that again, and did the whole lot up with the mangy bootlace.

On second thoughts, she undid the bundle again,
removed
the new letter, and re-tied the bootlace. She'd just read it once again and then she'd put it with the
others
, but not inside the bundle. She'd prefer after all to keep her mother's letters in their own special bundle. There was something that made her a bit uneasy about Patrick's letter, and she thought her mother, much as she had loved her eldest boy, mightn't like her letters to be so closely linked with this one of his.

The letter was written on a page out of a school jotter – the very cheap kind that had visible pieces of wood pulp in it, which you couldn't write on in pen and ink, because it would blot all over the place. He'd written with a pencil that needed sharpening, so between the poor quality of the paper, Patrick's inelegant
handwriting
and the blunt pencil, it was a bit of a chore to read it at all. But Mary Ann could decipher it well enough, and she could read between the lines too, and every time she read it, she got a sour surge of acid in her stomach,
caused by a mixture of panic, excitement, fear, horror and elation.

As well as being physically poorly written, the letter was confused in its construction and tone, as if Patrick too was in the grip of a mixture of panicky and elated feelings. It was full of sentences repeated from things that Mr Pearse, the leader of the rebels, had said, and bits of a poem by somebody else all about blood and roses, which was half like a prayer and half not. And at the very end there came an awful request for Mary Ann's help.

The request was awful, because it required Mary Ann to do something both simple and shocking. Quite what the something was was not entirely clear – it wasn't the sort of request you could make openly in a letter going through the public postal system. But even though it was stated in shrouded terms, Mary Ann knew perfectly well that she was being asked to do something illegal, and something that might also be morally wrong. The
Volunteers
were desperate to find safe places to keep ‘
hardware
', as Patrick put it. What could be safer than under Mary Ann's floorboards? Who would ever think of such a commodity being hidden in such a household?

Mary Ann thought she agreed with Patrick that the
rebellion
the Volunteers were planning against British rule in Ireland was right and just, but she was unhappy about her brother's request all the same. Although she was in favour of the idea of armed rebellion, it was a bit
different when it came to actual guns that might be used to shoot actual real live people being kept in your own bedroom, where you had to sleep at night. And Mary Ann was quite well aware of the attitude of her
employers
to guns and fighting. Would it be fair to them to bring such things into their house? She thought of Mrs Pim's kindness to her mother in her last days, and she thought about the trust and esteem in which she herself was held in this family, and she shook her head. But then she thought about the sheer cleverness of Patrick's plan. The authorities would never dream of raiding a Quaker house. Everyone knew where these people stood. The precious metal would be as safe as houses here. It was a lovely plan, lovely and clever and daring and brave and treacherous.

If she were to co-operate, Mary Ann would be part of the great bid for freedom of the Irish people. Future
generations
might call her a heroine. She would be in the tradition of the great heroes of Ireland's past. She'd be a modern warrior-woman, like Queen Maeve or Granuaile. She'd be part of the ancient struggle against the English oppressor and vital to the uprising that would finally rid Ireland of English rule and allow Robert Emmet's epitaph to be written, when his country took her place among the nations of the earth. Ah! Mary Ann looked out of the open window at the starlit night and wondered if the moon would shine one day soon on a truly free and Gaelic Ireland.

Then she looked down again at the grey-buff page of squiggles and scorings-out in her lap, and she feared for her brother. She feared for her brother, she had to admit, more than she feared for her country. Patrick Maloney was a fiery, impetuous lad, with more courage than sense, and God knows what was to become of him in the company of such men as he now consorted with. She was nearly sorry they had let him out of prison last year. At least he had been safe in there. It was a mad,
uncertain
time for Europe, for Ireland – and for the Maloney family. What was she to do? Mary Ann tucked the letter back into its incongruously clean envelope and put it with the rest under the floorboards.

Then she shut the window and climbed into bed, where she spent a long and disturbed night, lying awake for hours, and dreaming horrid, lurid dreams when she did finally drop off to sleep. And between dreams, she tossed on her pillow and tried to reach a decision, to choose between her brother and his convictions, which she largely shared, on the one hand, and her employers and their convictions, which she respected, on the other. All night she dreamt and tossed about and thought and thought and dreamt and tossed, and by the time the sun came up over the grey, pointed spire of the church of the Holy Trinity and glinted on the coloured windows of Mount Argus, she knew what she must do. 

A
melia was still getting used to being allowed to sit up for dinner in the evenings with the grown-ups, and she tried hard to behave terribly well, for it would never do to show herself unworthy of her elevation to the dining room. So she was careful to wipe her mouth daintily with her napkin before taking a sip of water, to make a minimum of chomping and slurping noises as she ate, and to pass the butter and the salt and the redcurrant jelly or the horseradish sauce or the gravy or whatever there was to go with the meat, to Grandmama, who sat gravely next to her and chewed her food slowly and
purposefully
. The hardest bit was not making eating noises, especially when there was clear soup, as there was tonight –
consommy
Mary Ann called it, and nobody was unkind enough to correct her pronunciation. Thick soup was
easier
to eat quietly – it seemed to be less irredeemably
wet
– but clear soup was so thin that it was difficult to control.

Amelia was making such a determined effort to
transfer
the beef
consommé
from the soupspoon into her mouth and safely down her throat, which
would
make the most unbecoming swallowing sounds, no matter how hard she tried to control it, that she almost missed the conversation her parents were having quietly at the other side of the table. But not entirely. She tuned in just as Mama was saying, ‘Eleanora is prostrate, and as for Gerald, he's out of his mind with worry and anger and disapproval and heaven knows what other emotions. It really is too bad of the boy.'

Amelia recognised the names of the parents of her friends Frederick and Lucinda Goodbody. ‘The boy' could only mean Frederick – there was only one son in that family. Amelia pricked up her ears. What on earth could Frederick have done that was having such a very dramatic effect on his parents? Frederick was always so polite and well-behaved, it was hard to imagine him
involved
in a family row. And yet she was not entirely
surprised
to hear that something was up in that family, after Frederick's odd moodiness on Sunday.

‘But does he realise the seriousness of what he is
doing
?' she heard her father ask, his voice full of concern. What could he be talking about?

‘Oh, Papa!' Amelia cried out, exasperated, ‘I wish you and Mama wouldn't mutter so. You always complain if Edmund and I have secrets at breakfast, and you say that meals are for sharing conversation as well as food. I do
think grown-ups might follow their own maxims
occasionally
.' It all came out much more irritable than she
intended
it to.

Grandmama gave a disapproving little cough, but she said nothing – just lapped away quietly at her soup, without a hint of slurping. How ever did she manage it?

‘You're quite right, Amelia,' said Mama, who was
always
fair. ‘It's rude to have a private conversation at a family meal.' But instead of addressing the situation by letting Amelia into the conversation, she chose instead to change the subject. After her outburst, which really was stronger than the situation had warranted, Amelia felt a little sheepish, so she didn't dare to try to turn the subject back again, but instead answered
monosyllabically
the questions Mama put to her about her history essay and whether her second-best boots needed heeling.

And so it wasn't until the following morning that
Amelia
found out what was afoot in the Goodbody
household
. Lucinda came into the classroom pale and red-eyed. Good heavens, thought Amelia, it must be something truly dreadful that Frederick has done if Lucinda is so upset. Lucinda Goodbody was not known for the softness of her heart or the quickness of her sympathies.

When they were little girls of twelve, Amelia and Lucinda had been best friends: Amelia had admired Lucinda terribly, and Lucinda had basked in the
admiration. But there had been a coolness between them at one point, and though they had long since made it up and were no longer pitted against one another, they had never resumed their former closeness.

Still, Amelia didn't care to see Lucinda miserable, and besides, she wanted to find out about Frederick, so she sidled up to Lucinda at coffee-break and asked, not
unkindly
, ‘What's up, Lucy? Everything all right? You look a bit washed out.'

‘Oh, Amelia!' said Lucinda, with a wobble in her voice, and with that she collapsed on Amelia's shoulder and sobbed out: ‘Frederick's enlisted! He's going to Flanders to fight the Hun!'

Amelia's heart did a little leap inside her chest.
Flanders
meant Belgium, where the war was. Gallant little Belgium, people used to call it, when the war started. Nobody said that so much any more. But who was the Hun?

‘What?' Amelia asked, gently disengaging herself and brushing Lucinda's fringe out of her eyes, so that she could look at her. ‘What did you say, Lucinda? Frederick is going to the
war
?'

‘Yes!' said Lucinda in a strangled voice. She was rather enjoying being the grief-stricken sister, and she hung her head, so that her burnished curls trembled in an
affecting
manner.

‘To fight who? I mean, whom?' asked Amelia, still
trying
to get the story straight in her mind.

‘The Hun of course. The Bosch.'

‘The Hun? The Bosch?' They sounded like monsters or machines.

‘Yes of course, you ninny. The Germans. Who do you think we're at war with? Anyway, the thing is, Frederick has joined up. He just marched into some horrid
recruiting
office in Grafton Street, and he'll be gone by the day after tomorrow!' And here she gave another effective little sob.

‘Lucinda, I don't understand. Quakers don't go to war. Frederick is a pacifist. Isn't he? He must be. We all are. Aren't we?' Amelia was quite confused.

She was remembering Frederick's outburst on the train on Sunday. He had sounded quite the conventional Quaker, showing his abhorrence for this war. Hadn't he? Or had he? She tried to remember his exact words – war is beastly, people get killed, not a laughing matter. At the time, they had sounded like anti-war views, but of course you could read them as just the apprehensive thoughts of somebody about to join up and under no
illusions
as to the seriousness of his action. Then a thought struck her:

‘They haven't conscripted him, have they?' she asked. ‘I thought there wasn't any conscription in Ireland.' No, they couldn't have. Amelia was sure Mama had been
involved
with other Quakers in a successful campaign to oppose conscription in this country.

‘No. That's the awful thing. He wasn't conscripted. He
went and enlisted, voluntarily. Isn't it dreadful? Mama is distraught.'

‘Prostrate,' corrected Amelia absently. No wonder
Frederick
had been so uneasy on Sunday. She was right to think he was trying to tell her something. What a piece of news!

‘And Papa …'

‘Is nearly out of his mind with worry and anger.'

‘How did you know?' asked Lucinda in surprise.

‘Oh, you know, one can imagine,' replied Amelia. ‘But why, Luce? What can have possessed him?'

She searched her own mind for the answer. And why hadn't he told her all this the other day? He must have been afraid she would have tried to dissuade him. Would she have? She supposed so, but she wasn't sure. Why wasn't she sure?

‘That's the thing. He won't say why. At least, he's been rowing a bit with Papa lately, I suppose. Maybe he's
trying
to …'

Lucinda spilt out a long and complicated story of
family
tensions which she thought must be the cause of
Frederick's
taking this extraordinary step. Frederick had finished school some months before and had joined his father in the family business. They had not been getting on together at all, Lucinda said. Frederick didn't like the office, he didn't like the work, he didn't like working with his father. In short, he was deeply unhappy with his life at the moment. The war, dreadful as it was, must
have looked like a way out, a chance to prove himself as a man, separate from his family and away from his
father
. But what a course of action! No wonder his parents were in such a state!

Amelia sat down and tried to assess her own reaction to this piece of news. Her heart had given a lurch when she first heard it, but then her heart gave that same lurch every time Frederick's name was mentioned. After that, she had been confused and surprised by what Lucinda had said, but what ought she to feel next? Anxiety would be appropriate. After all, Frederick might be wounded, shell-shocked, even killed. But though she did feel some anxiety, it was only in a mild sort of way. She couldn't really imagine Frederick dead or wounded. It was too unbelievable. No.

What she felt, she now began to realise, was a sort of secret, shameful elation. Frederick was taking a stand. He wasn't going to just go on living his life the way other people – his parents, his community – had ordained that he should. He was going to make something of himself. Yes, he was going to really do something, be somebody. Frederick Goodbody, officer of the king's forces – for surely he would be an officer, a young man of such good background – off to the trenches to defend the rights of small countries to rule themselves and to resist invasion. Why, it was all so gallant and adventurous! Oh, if only girls could do such fine things as fight for justice and truth, the defence of the Empire and the protection of
the innocent! But here she was, doomed to remain on a remote little island at the edge of Europe, writing history essays and hearing Edmund's spellings, while Frederick could sail off to glory on the battlefield. Amelia had made up her mind how she felt after all – she had
decided
to be overcome by the magnificence of it all.

‘Cheer up, Lucinda!' she commanded, slapping her friend heartily on the back, as she thought glorious thoughts. ‘Young Frederick knows how to look after himself, and with a bit of luck he'll be home in six months with a chestful of medals and a fund of tales of bravery in the face of the enemy.'

‘Don't!' wailed Lucinda, determined not to be robbed of her great sorrow. She shrugged Amelia off and gave a becoming little sniff into her dainty, lace-edged
handkerchief
. Just then the bell rang for the next lesson, and the girls drifted back to the classroom.

‘And the worst thing is,' said Lucinda as they reached the classroom door, ‘he's not even an officer or anything, just an infantry soldier in some wretched little regiment nobody's ever even heard of. The Dublin Fusiliers – I ask you.'

When Amelia returned to Casimir Road that afternoon she threw her satchel under the stairs and went into the kitchen. Mary Ann was black to the elbows, and had odd black smudges here and there on her face too, and there was a strong, acrid-sweet, metallic smell in the air.

‘What ever are you at?' asked Amelia, to whom the
mysteries of the servant's life had still not fully been revealed.

‘I'm making a cake,' muttered Mary Ann.

‘A cake?'

‘Yeh, a lickerish cake,' Mary Ann affirmed.

Amelia looked curiously about the room. There was no sign of baking utensils or ingredients, and the smell of the black substance wasn't remotely like liquorice.

‘I see,' said Amelia. ‘And tell me, if you're making a cake, why is it necessary to use half-a-dozen filthy rags, a wire brush and three goose-wings?'

‘All right,' conceded Mary Ann, ‘I'm cleaning the stove.'

‘Golly, isn't it pretty!' said Amelia, peering at it as if for the first time. ‘I never noticed this little panel of birds and flowers down the side before. Look! They're smiling at us, since you polished them up.' And so they were, gleaming and preening themselves coquettishly.

‘Huh!' said Mary Ann. ‘I could have done without that panel, thank you very much, smiles or no smiles. It's all little cooks and grannies and fiddly bits.'

‘Cooks and grannies?'

‘Yes, it's good isn't it. Like me and your grandmother of an afternoon.'

Amelia looked bewildered.

‘Nooks and crannies, Amelia. Gosh, you're so slow on the uptake sometimes! It's a joke. Anyway, them things were absolute murder to polish. Lucky for you it's nearly
done, or I'd have had you at it as well as meself. But at this stage there's no point in the two of us getting
covered
in black-leading, so if you want to play cooks and grannies too, you can fill the kettle.'

Amelia did so, and then sat down to tell the news about Frederick to Mary Ann.

Mary Ann didn't say much. She just put away the cleaning things and then used a skewer to pick
black-leading
out from under her fingernails and grimaced at Amelia's story.

‘I don't know,' she said at last. ‘I thought you people didn't believe in warfare.'

‘Mmm,' said Amelia, reluctantly. She had known all along that this was a problem, but she didn't want to face it. She didn't want to let Frederick down.

‘Well, then, it should be against Master Goodbody's religion to go to war.'

‘Yes,' said Amelia lamely. ‘I suppose it is.'

‘Then he shouldn't go, should he?'

‘No, I suppose he shouldn't,' agreed Amelia, deflated. ‘But perhaps,' she went on, making it up as she went along, ‘perhaps he feels so strongly about this war that he is prepared to set his pacifist principles aside on this occasion.'

Even as she said it, Amelia knew it didn't ring true. In truth, she didn't really understand Frederick's motives, and though the idea excited her, it also confused and worried her.