The Good People (49 page)

When she had finished, Nance took a deep breath and examined the jury. The men were looking at her with an expression she could not place. There was none of the lawyer’s acid curl of the lip, none of the scowling or wariness she had experienced before. No anger, no fear. She realised, then, that they regarded her with the same expression of those she had begged from: pity, shadowed with disdain. Her stomach sank.

The lawyer was smiling to himself.

‘Miss Roche, do you accept payment for your . . . services?’

‘I don’t be taking money, for I’d surely lose the knowledge and cure.’

‘But it is true that you will accept gifts of fuel and food? Goods.’

‘Sure, that is true.’

‘Did you drown Micheál Kelliher in the Flesk on Monday, the sixth of March, in exchange for goods?’

Nance frowned. ‘I’m not after drowning Micheál Kelliher, no.’

‘Both Mary Clifford and Mrs Leahy have stated that you ordered them to bathe Micheál Kelliher in that pool of the river Flesk, where the boundaries of three rivers meet. They say they had so bathed him for three mornings running, and on the last morning you kept the child longer under the water than usual.’

‘’Twas to banish it. The fairy.’

‘Not
it
, Miss Roche. Himself. Micheál Kelliher.’

‘’Twas no natural boy.’

‘He was a paralytic, we hear. Could neither stand nor walk nor speak.’

‘’Twas the fairy of it.’

‘He was your patient?’

‘He was.’

‘But you are not a doctor. You are ignorant of medical knowledge. Your training is only in
nostrums
. Old folk cures. Is that not so?’

Nance felt a kick of anger in her chest. Over and over they circled with their questions. Did she not make herself clear? ‘I have the knowledge. Of the charms and the cures. Of the herbs.’

‘Mrs Leahy has said you led her to believe that you were capable of curing the boy, Miss Roche. If you have the
knowledge
, then why is Micheál Kelliher dead? Why could you not cure him?’

Nance thought of Maggie, smoking by the warmth of the fire at night while the corncrakes filled the air outside with their long, scraping cries.

What is in the marrow is hard to take out of the bone.

‘’Tis not Micheál Kelliher who is dead,’ she said finally.

‘Do you truly believe that, Miss Roche?’

Nance brought her gaze level to that of the counsel. ‘That child died a long time ago.’

There were exclamations from those listening in the court. Nance noticed the jurors shift in their chairs and exchange knowing looks.

‘Is there any other statement you would like to make to the court?’

Nance hesitated. ‘I have told you my truth.’

‘That is all then, thank you.’

Nance was fetched down from the witness box and returned to her place in the dock next to Nóra. While the counsel made his closing remarks, Nance ran the pads of her fingers over her crooked thumbs, swollen sore in the heat of the courtroom. They throbbed, and she tucked them into her palms, balling her hands into fists.

There was a whimper beside her, and Nance saw that Nóra was shaking, staring as Mr Walshe raised a hand in an attempt to settle the crowd. An atmosphere of nervous excitement was issuing throughout the courtroom. She heard the judge wearily call for order, and one of the jurors sent a man to open the outer door of the court. There was a collective murmur of relief as fresh air fanned through the room.

Nance saw that, for all the defence lawyer’s outward ease, Mr Walshe’s face was shining with sweat, his shirt visibly damp beneath his suit. He regarded the sober-faced jury.

‘Gentlemen, this case, although unusual and repugnant in the extreme, is not one of wilful murder. The Crown’s chief witness, Mary Clifford, who was present at the time the accident occurred, who witnessed
firsthand
Micheál Kelliher’s treatment not only at the Flesk on the morning of Monday, the sixth of March, but also in the months prior to his death, stood before you and – under oath – admitted that she did not believe the prisoners had deliberately drowned the child. Given her testimony, Anne Roche and Honora Leahy cannot be rightly convicted of wilful murder.

‘Gentlemen, Micheál Kelliher lost his life through superstition. It is true that the circumstances surrounding his treatment at the hands of the accused are extraordinary. It is true that the gross delusion these women operated under is horrifying. The scale of their ignorance is appalling. But it cannot be discounted as incidental. The accused acted on the belief that the deceased child, Micheál Kelliher, was a fairy spirit. A
changeling
, in the words of the Crown’s witness. Anne Roche selected a particular site of the river Flesk believed to be fairy-inhabited waters, and bathed him there with the assistance of Honora Leahy three mornings consecutively, contending that the falsely believed changeling would return to his supernatural realm.’

Nance remembered the wildness with which Nóra had hauled herself up the bank when they had lifted the banished changeling from the water.

‘I will go to see if he is returned!’ The widow’s grey hair unfastening down her back as she grasped at tree roots and moss to drag herself from the river. ‘I will see if he is there!’ Lurching wildly through the ferns and bracken, branches swinging in her wake.

Burying the body of the changeling in the Piper’s Grave, pimpled with cold.

‘Neither of the accused can write, gentlemen. Anne Roche, particularly, is unlettered and ignorant of the modern world, and her statement that “the child died a long time ago” is evidence of her benighted belief that the boy she was curing was
fairy
. Again, let me remind you that even Mary Clifford, who was witness to the act, has stated under oath that the child was bathed not with intent to kill, but to
put the fairy out of it
. Given this testimony, and the pitiful intellectual and moral ignorance and the advanced age of the accused, I recommend to you an acquittal of this charge.’

Nance stared as the lawyer returned to his seat, fear rising in her throat. I have no ignorance upon me, she wanted to tell him. Don’t be telling them that would have me hang that there is no knowledge about me.

Baron Pennefather cleared his throat. He waited until there was absolute silence before addressing the jury.

‘Gentlemen. Let me impress upon you that while a charge of murder may be commuted to manslaughter where life was taken away under the influence of sudden passion, this cannot apply to the defence’s argument that the life of Micheál Kelliher was taken as a result of superstitious belief.’

‘We will hang,’ Nóra whispered. ‘They do not believe. They think it superstition.’ Her voice shook, her tongue catching on the words. Nance’s heart thudded in dread.

The judge took a moment to examine the waiting faces in the room. ‘It is clear that the ignorant actions of the prisoners demonstrate their belonging to a caste derived from hereditary or progressive immorality. Yet, it is not a mark of wickedness we find in this case, but rather the overwhelming suggestion and likelihood of low intellectual power in combination with strongly developed passions of the lower nature.’

Nance began to breathe rapidly. What is he saying? she wondered. What is he saying about me?

‘In short, while this is a case of suspicion, and requires to be thoroughly examined into, I encourage you to recognise the superstitious motives that are clearly, albeit disturbingly, evident. And I ask you to consider the problems of women of advanced age in prison, unfit for transportation, who demand much attention through infirmity. Thank you, gentlemen.’

Nance watched as the jurors rose together like a flock of grey-hooded crows and exited the room to decide their verdict. The noise in the courtroom was suddenly overwhelming.

I don’t understand, thought Nance. I don’t understand.

Looking down she saw that she still held her hands in fists.

The jury were gone less than half an hour before the clerk and officer of the court began to settle the crowd. Nance felt her heartbeat rise in apprehension as Justice Baron Pennefather entered the room and resumed his position in the chair, pressing his hands together as stragglers forced their way inside, fighting for a clear view of the prisoners.

Next to her, Nóra leant against the dock, her body slowly sinking towards the floor. Nance reached out to grasp her about the arm and Nóra’s eyes flashed open.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she hissed, before fear splayed through her expression and she clutched at Nance’s retreating hands. ‘I don’t want to die,’ she murmured. She lifted her fetters and attempted to cross herself. ‘I don’t want to hang. I don’t want to hang.’

Nance felt the widow begin to shake again.

‘Sore-wounded Christ. Oh, sore-wounded Christ, I don’t want to hang. Oh, please, Lord.’

Nance began to rock on her feet, fear filling her stomach. She bit on her tongue until she could taste the iron of her blood.

‘Sore-wounded Christ, Martin! Oh!’

‘Quiet now.’ An officer nudged Nóra and she gasped, suddenly gripping onto the wooden spikes in front of them to hold herself upright.

The atmosphere in the court was like that in the face of an approaching storm. An uneasy hush. A gathering tension in the air as the jurors were admitted back into the court and, faces solemn, returned to their chairs.

‘I don’t want to hang,’ Nóra continued muttering next to Nance. ‘I don’t want to hang.’

The judge’s voice carried across the room. ‘Have you found your verdict?’

A white-haired man stood, hands carefully brushing down his trousers. ‘We have, Your Worship.’

‘What say you?’

Nance closed her eyes. Imagined the river, the peaceful unknotting of water.

She could feel Nóra shaking violently next to her.

‘We agree with Your Worship that this is a case of suspicion, however, in the charge of wilful murder against Anne Roche and Honora Leahy, we find insufficient evidence for conviction. Our verdict is not guilty.’

There was a pause, and then the courtroom erupted in excited and furious reaction.

Nance sank to the floor, her legs collapsing in relief. Shutting her eyes, the clamour in the hot air around her sounded like nothing more than a sudden downpour of rain. Summer rain breaking over the pine needles hot-scented in the woods, crisping leaves browning in the oak, the alder, the torrential blessing of heavy cloud over the forest, and the sweet gurgle of water towards the river.

Nance only opened her eyes again when they hauled her to her feet to unlock the fetters. Blinking against the light, she was vaguely aware of Nóra, bent over, howling with relief, and beyond her, in the shifting, tidal crowd, Mary, staring at them with tears streaming down her pale cheeks.

‘Mary!’ Nance croaked. There was a heavy tug and the irons came off her wrists and in the sudden feel of lightness and freedom, she raised both palms to the sobbing girl. ‘Mary!’

The girl spat on the ground. ‘I curse you,’ she mouthed. Then she turned and disappeared into the seething crowd.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

Heather

M
ary stood in the crowded market
street of Tralee, her eyes scanning the flocks of people that milled in the road. The day was hot, and she sweated in the new shift she had bought with the widow’s shilling. She had wrapped the clothes still filled with Micheál’s smell in a neat bundle and held this conspicuously at her hip, standing straight as a poker, her eyes meeting every casual and curious gaze that reached her. Let them see that she was for hire.

Pigs lay humped in the road, their squealing piglets in makeshift pens staked with pegs and string. Sheep, new-shorn, huddled under the eyes of boys and their fathers, capped, smoking, laughing at the women chasing a terrified chicken that had flown the straw coop.

Mary had asked Father Healy the road to Annamore after the trial. Had started walking the way, exultant, her heart thrilling in anticipation. She imagined the shouts of surprise as she rounded the corner, the little thumping feet hitting the dust as her brothers and sisters ran to her, wrapped their arms about her legs and waist and dragged her away to show her new-hatched chickens, scooping up the puffing, cheeping yellow. Her mam, lined and sombre as usual, but relieved to see her safe. Happy to have her home to work. And how she would work. She would tend the lazy beds until the stalks came thick and fast, and she would shake the soil from the clutch of lumpers, as yellow as butter, and no one would be hungry. They would boil them briefly, to eat them ‘with the bones still in’, as her da would say. And she would hold the little ones afterwards, or set them to sleep against the belly of the snoring pig in the corner, and all would be well.