The Mersey Girls (15 page)

’Tis not right nor fair to meet the girleen in her father’s barn when she’s as unawakened as a day old kitten, he told himself severely. If you’re so mad for a woman then go into Caher and find a willing lass – the barmaid from Tom’s Tavern on Main Street, or the plump and laughing beauty who gave you a startled, admiring glance as she came out of the O’Connell Memorial Church last Sunday fortnight. Stand Lucy Murphy up, give her the go-by, Finn Delaney, he ordered himself; she’ll be disillusioned, sure, but that way she’ll be far less hurt than if you let her believe the two of you have a future together. Not that she would believe any such thing, not a child like her. So I won’t go, she can wait in the barn until morning comes, but Finn Delaney will be long gone about his own business.

So he fed Granny Mogg and himself and tucked the old ‘un up in her bed of hay halfway up the castle tower and went down and stood beside the curragh in the gathering dusk and watched the stars prick out one by one over the lough and the distant sea – and knew he would go to the farm, and stand just inside the barn door, and wait for her to come to him.

‘Lucy, where’s your appetite? Didn’t I make pancakes especially for you, and aren’t you pushin’ them round and round your plate and scarcely a bite have you taken? If you’re ill, alanna, then it’s in bed you should be and not sittin’ at the table playin’ with your good food.’

Lucy hastily took a mouthful of her pancake and brought her mind back to the job in hand – eating her tea. A pleasant job enough, too, when Maeve had made pancakes with honey over them and a squeeze of lemon.

‘Sorry, Maeve. I was thinking so I was,’ she said humbly, swallowing her mouthful and giving her aunt a reassuring smile. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me at all at all, only I was dreaming. When I’ve had me supper, shall I be after collecting the eggs? I saw the hen with the ragged comb going into the big barn as I come up with Caitlin for me tea, and the speckled hen likes to lay right up against the orchard hedge – I could look there.’

‘I got them earlier,’ Maeve said, looking surprised, as well she might, Lucy reflected guiltily. Maeve knew too well that Lucy hated being sent out at dusk to search for eggs and right now dusk was rapidly turning into darkness. ‘Besides, you’ve some darning to do, young lady.’

Lucy groaned. She absolutely hated any form of needlework and was dreadfully bad at it, but Maeve was adamant. She must be able to darn and to sew a little because farmers’ wives – and she was obviously going to be a farmer’s wife – made their children’s clothing if not their own.

‘Oh, Maeve, I’m ever so careful now about me socks, I hardly ever make a hole in the heel, and . . .’

Grandad was sitting at the head of the table reading a farming journal and eating a round of bread and cheese with a pickled onion. He did not care for pancakes. Now he looked at Lucy over the top of his pince nez and shook his head sadly. ‘You’d sooner plant an acre of spuds than darn one,’ he said placidly. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – you should have been a lad, Lucy Murphy.’

‘There’s a hole in your fawn socks and a rent in your checkered pinafore,’ Maeve said inexorably, ignoring her father’s words. ‘Might as well get it over, alanna, but first we’ll wash up if you’ve done pushing that pancake round your plate.’

‘I’ll eat it, I’ll eat it,’ Lucy squeaked, gobbling pancake. She cleared her plate and pushed it away, then slid her chair back. ‘Come on, then, let’s get on with the washing up.’

‘There’s something up with that young lady,’ Maeve said to her father when Lucy had done her tasks to the best of her ability – a cobbled up sock and a torn apron now boasted her huge, untidy stitches – and gone off up to bed. ‘Never have I known her so vague, nor so willing to go to her bed. No doubt we’ll hear her raisin’ the echoes presently, bawlin’ out to Caitlin how misunderstood she is.’ Maeve put her own sewing down in her lap and rubbed at her tired eyes. ‘She’ll need a new school skirt come the autumn, she’s growing so fast. I’ll go into Caher tomorrow, see if I can pick up some material, cheap.’ She glanced sideways at her father, smoking his pipe now and gazing reflectively at the empty fireplace, for in summer they no longer lit the fire even in the late evening. ‘I wouldn’t mind catching the train up to Dublin for a nice day out, and there’ll be material cheaper there than I can get in Caher. The child might enjoy it, too. I could ask Mrs Kelly if I could take Caitlin along.’

The farmhouse was old, its walls a foot thick, its ceilings substantial, but because it was a warm evening the parlour window was flung wide and the door leading into the hall was open, too, letting the gentle evening breeze freshen the rather stuffy room. Through the window they heard Lucy’s window shoot open.

‘Caitliiiiiiin!’

‘Oh dear God preserve us, here they go,’ Padraig Murphy said resignedly, but there was a twinkle in his eye nevertheless: ‘One of these days that voice’ll crack every pane of glass in the house so it will.’

‘I’m here, Luuuuuuuucy!’

‘I’m rare tired, Cait. Goodniiiiiiiight.’

‘Oh but Lucy, we’ve not . . .’

Crash
. The firm closing of Lucy’s window was only just short of a slam. Padraig looked across at Maeve and raised his grizzled brows. ‘A row have they had, Maeve? Never have I heard the whores’ chorus come to a more abrupt end!’

‘Hush Dad, you mustn’t talk like that,’ Maeve admonished. ‘Now I wonder what’s up with those young devils tonight? I
knew
something had upset Lucy earlier, when she wasn’t eating her tea. I wonder, should I go up?’

Padraig yawned, stretched, and tapped his pipe out on the empty fire grate. ‘It’s time we both went up, but not to interfere with the childer,’ he said decisively. ‘If they’ve had a fight they’ll make up, if the child’s ill we shall fetch the doctor in the morning. But right now, Maeveen, you and I need all the sleep we can get, for tomorrow, all being well, we’ve got those young heifers to drive down to the market.’

Lucy thought it would never get dark, or not dark enough, and then she thought Grandad and Maeve would never douse the lamp and come up to bed. And then, of course, after her vigorous and exciting day, she began to fear she would simply fall asleep and slumber straight through the night until Maeve woke her for her breakfast next morning.

But she was in luck. She was down the covers with her window closed and her lamp out when her bedroom door creaked open; it was Maeve, looking in on her to give her a goodnight kiss. She tiptoed over to the bed and Lucy felt gentle fingers caress her cheek and then land, featherlight, on her brow for an instant. She thinks I’m maybe not well, Lucy thought, instantly remorseful. She knows me so well, she could read my troubled mind. But with a bit of luck she would put it down to a tiff with Caitlin or a slight stomach upset and go to bed now herself and leave Lucy to sleep whatever it was off till morning.

And she was right, for presently Maeve tiptoed over and opened the window, then left the room, closing the door gently behind her.

Lucy lay very still for what felt like an hour but was probably more like five minutes. Then she jumped out of bed and, with infinite care, opened her door a crack. She could see the line of light from Maeve’s lamp shining under her aunt’s bedroom door. As soon as the light goes out I’m off, she told herself, reaching her dark coat down off the back of the door and pulling on her fawn socks, complete with cobbled heel where her darning had grown slipshod. It’s a mild night, I don’t need anything but the coat and me socks and wellingtons – and they’re in the kitchen, of course.

But the stairs creaked, and Maeve would probably take a few minutes to actually go off to sleep. Maeve had told her so many times about how she had woken in the middle of the night and just kind of known that little Evie, Lucy’s mother, had been downstairs, preparing to leave the farm. Suppose such second sight leapt into being again tonight and Maeve turned up just as Lucy was halfway down the stairs, or worse, tiptoeing across to the barn? She’d be mad as fire, Lucy thought fearfully, just as Maeve put out her lamp and, judging by the sighs and creaks, settled down in her bed. Oh mercy, what’ll I say if she catches me outside in me nightie, jabbering away to a tinker, when she’s always telling me how they kidnap little girls and take them away to work for them?

The thought was almost enough to have her climbing back into bed and pulling the covers up over her ears. Almost, but not quite. As it was she tiptoed down the stairs, light as a feather and almost without breathing, and into the kitchen.

It was dark in here, but it smelled nice. Maeve’s baking, the pancakes, even the lemon which had been used to flavour them, were all still here, in the warmed kitchen air. And there stood her boots, like a couple of soldiers on parade, right by the back door.

Lucy put the boots on – she was already wearing her coat and socks – and gently turned the key in the back door lock. It squeaked, but only as a mouse might squeak; even to Lucy’s senses, heightened by fear, the squeak was a small one. Then the door was unlocked, she turned the knob and opened it and there was the yard, bathed in moonlight, with that air of other-worldliness which comes over any familiar place seen in unfamiliar circumstances.

Out I go, Lucy said to herself, remaining frozen to the spot. Out I go and across the yard and into the comforting shadows of the big barn. I’m not scared, I know who’s waiting for me there . . . I’m fourteen and a half years old, almost a woman grown, I’m sensible and I’m good at me schoolwork and I love writing essays and the history of me country and – and I’m scared witless and I don’t think I’ll walk out into all that enchantment and danger and excitement, I think I’ll go back to bed instead, the same as Maeve would want me to do if she knew about all this.

But . . . that would mean letting Finn down. I don’t know him, not properly, Lucy argued to herself, all I do know is that he’s a tinker and tinkers do dreadful things to little girls, they steal them away and make them work in big houses in Dublin and pinch their bottoms to make them scrub faster. This was the nearest Maeve had ever got to explaining that there were men in the world who exploited young girls for their own ends but it was quite enough to put Lucy off – she thought that having a man pinch your bottom without so much as a by-your-leave was quite the most horrible thing which could happen to a girl, and did not intend that it should happen to her if she could possibly prevent it.

Therefore, her sensible mind told her now, you don’t go out to a black-shadowed barn through enchanted silvery moonlight, because that’s how they get you. For all you know Finn may be false, she told her shivering, cowardly self, he may have a whole band of tinkers waiting in that barn to carry you off to Dublin, shut you in a blackbeetle-ridden kitchen and pinch your bottom until you’ve peeled a ton or two of potatoes and scrubbed several miles of filthy floor.

So right then and there, whilst her whole body was shouting at her to turn back, relock the door and make for her warm, safe bed, Lucy marched – but quietly – out of the kitchen, leaving the door gaping open behind her though in case she needed a quick retreat, and across the moonlit yard. She did not know that the moonlight silvered her hair and made her skin shine with a soft pearly glow, or that the moon-shadows made her eyes look huge, enhanced the small curves of her budding breasts beneath her nightgown, turned her, for that short walk, into the woman she would one day become.

But the watcher knew. He saw her coming steadily across the yard, saw the dog in its kennel glance up, then lie down again, secure in the knowledge that his little mistress was in command of the situation.

Lucy came on steadily, then slid into the shadowy barn and there was Finn, smiling at her, taking both her hands in his warm, safe clasp.

‘And aren’t you a fine, brave girl?’ he said softly, and the touch of his hand excited her less than the warm commendation in his voice. ‘Oh little Luceen, I’m glad you weren’t scared that the tinker meant you harm, for I swear by Jesus and Mary and by all the holy saints that I wouldn’t hurt a hair of your head, nor let anyone else do so. Will you come up with me, into the hay?’

With his hand in hers, all her hesitations and doubts were lost. She nodded and followed him closely as he loped across the barn floor and began to climb the short wooden ladder which led to the hayloft. He was neat and quick, she no less so, and a moment later he made a nest in the hay, using his body, then held out his hands to her.

‘Sit down, alanna; then we can talk.’

Afterwards, Lucy could not remember much of what they had talked about; she could remember far more easily the feel of his hand in hers, the smell of his skin, the way he would give a sudden crack of laughter, hastily muffled, over something she said.

At one point they talked about Granny Mogg and he told her he was going away, probably for as long as a month, and would be obliged if she would keep an eye on the old ’un.

‘Her mind isn’t always her own,’ he said carefully. ‘Most of the time she’s great, but then something seems to slip in her head and she’s – she’s not so good. But if you can take her a bit of bread and cheese, some milk, make sure she drinks each day, then she ought to be all right until I get back.’

‘Where are you going?’ Lucy asked. She stroked his arm very gently, as one might stroke a wild cat who might run at your touch. ‘Is it far? Can I get in touch with you, Finn?’

‘I’m going fishing, then I’ll join in the harvest of some crop or other,’ Finn said. ‘I don’t know where I’ll be though – anywhere I can get work, I guess.’

‘And you’ll come back?’

He laughed, then caught at the hand which was stroking his arm and kissed the palm, his lips warm and somehow intimate against her skin, the small gesture sending odd shivers down her spine.

‘Of course I’ll come back, little eejit,’ he teased. ‘Would I leave Granny Mogg to your tender mercies? Or you to hers, for the matter of that? I’ll come back with me pockets bulgin’ with good t’ings, and a host of stories and tales.’

‘Good,’ Lucy said. She was getting tired but had no desire whatsoever to leave her nest in the hay. She leaned her head against Finn’s shoulder. ‘I do love a story, Finn. Shall you tell me one now?’