Читать книгу Danny Boy - Anne Bennett - Страница 9

Connie complained good-naturedly that the path from the road would be worn away with the people who came to visit Rosie Walsh and her new baby. They came bearing gifts and good wishes. Even her parents came – Rosie guessed only because it would have been remarked upon if they hadn’t. They certainly paid scant attention to the child and, on hearing the name chosen, Minnie snapped out sourly, ‘What kind of outlandish name is that? She should be named for members of the family. That’s how it’s done. It shows respect.’

‘Danny and I like the name Bernadette,’ Rosie remarked calmly.

‘Like! Like! What’s there to like in a name? It’s what you’re called and that’s an end to it.’

‘Well, our baby is to be called Bernadette Mary,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘We’ve already spoken to Father McNally about it. He liked it and gave me a wee book about St Bernadette to read to the baby when she’s older.’

That was that then. If the priest had put his stamp of approval on the child’s name there was nothing further Minnie could say.

They didn’t stay very long after that and although Connie said nothing in Rosie’s hearing, she remarked to her own daughters that the woman was mean-spirited and miserable. Her daughter and first grandchild were there together and she barely gave them the time of day and would not even stay long enough to take a sup of tea. God, what a woman!

Rosie’s sisters made up for the lack of attention she and the baby had received from her parents, picking Bernadette up and cuddling her, crooning to her and telling Rosie how grand she was and how proud they felt.

They brought knitted coats and as Chrissie handed hers over she said, ‘It’s not great, Rosie, but I did my best.’

Rosie unfolded the little jacket and noticed the odd hole and dropped stitch, but said nothing. She knew Chrissie was no hand with either a knitting needle or a sewing needle, but it touched her that she’d tried.

Geraldine’s little jacket was better, and Rosie thanked them both and showed them her other gifts. Pride of place were the two dresses Elizabeth and Sarah had given her, both in brilliant white satin and with smocking so fine and beautiful that Geraldine said, ‘They’re lovely, Rosie, both of them. Is Bernadette being christened in one of these?’

‘No,’ Rosie answered. ‘Mammy – Connie, you know – has the family christening gown. It’s beautiful and kept between layers of tissue paper in a trunk in the loft. She’s washed it to freshen it up and it looks like new. It would so please her for Bernadette to wear it.’

‘I love the cradle,’ Chrissie said, tipping the rocker gently with her foot.

‘It’s beautiful, all that carving on the side,’ Geraldine said. ‘Is that a family heirloom too?’

‘Aye, but Danny did it up, you know, and gave it another coat or two of varnish. Mammy has spent the last weeks hemming cot sheets and nappies from a bolt of soft cotton she bought, and she’s bought the softest woollen blankets too.’

But of either of the families, the one totally besotted by the child was Dermot. He’d spend ages just looking at her. The first day the girls called was a Saturday and Bernadette was four days old and he had insisted on coming with them. After that, he prised money from his piggy bank and went after school and chose the best rattle in the shop for his little niece.

The following Saturday they called again and Dermot had the rattle with him and waved it from side to side above Bernadette’s head, but gently so as not to startle her. He was delighted when Bernadette’s reflexes caused her to clasp his fingers and Rosie, watching him, thought it would have been the making of him if he’d not been the youngest in the family.

‘Would you like to hold her, Dermot?’ she said.

‘Can I?’

‘Surely you can.’

‘I’ll not drop her, Rosie.’

‘I know you won’t. Sit you up on the bed and open up your arms.’

Even Chrissie and Geraldine smiled at the awe on the young boy’s face as he held the baby close to him, and so did Connie when she came into the room with refreshments for them all.

‘Are you excited about tomorrow?’ Chrissie asked Rosie, biting into one of the biscuits.

‘A bit. Are you?’

‘No, I’m scared to death.’

‘You only have to do the responses,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s all written down and Sarah can go first if you like.’

‘Oh I’ll probably be all right when I start,’ Chrissie said. She and Sarah were to be Bernadette’s godmothers, and Phelan the child’s godfather, for the baby’s christening the next day. It was to be a lavish affair, with a large party afterwards in the Walshes’ house. With the help of her daughters when they were home, Connie had been baking and cooking almost since the day the child was born.

Rosie was pleased at the fuss being made, although she protested that Connie was doing too much. The next day, as she stood before the altar of the church with the sun shining through the stained glass in the windows to send a myriad of coloured lights dancing in front of them, she felt such peace and contentment. Here she was, beside the man she loved, welcomed so warmly into his family. Her own were in pews behind, together with neighbours and friends, and Rosie felt tears of happiness in her eyes.

She wouldn’t let herself cry, though, not at her own child’s christening, and she passed the baby to Sarah as the priest indicated. If Sarah noticed Rosie’s over-bright eyes she knew she would make no comment about it, for her own voice had been a little shaky when she made the responses.

Rosie wasn’t aware straight away that Sarah was raging about something. She was too busy showing off her baby and accepting the praise and presents of all those friends, neighbours and relatives who’d crowded into the Walshes’ house after the christening.

Bernadette eventually went to sleep and Rosie took her into the room away from the noise and laid her in the cradle. It was on coming out again that she caught sight of Sarah’s face and knew she was in a temper then right enough, for Sarah’s feelings were always portrayed in her face.

The looks she shot across the room to her Sam, who was drinking deep of the beer Matt had bought and talking earnestly to Shay, should have rendered him senseless on the stone-flagged floor. ‘Lover’s tiff?’ Rosie enquired lightly.

‘No,’ Sarah hissed back. ‘It’s that pair, on about the war and places none of us have heard of – Wipers and Gallipoli – and how over two hundred thousand have died now and a good percentage of them Irish men and boys. It’s not the time or place to discuss such a thing, if there is ever a suitable time. I told them straight, but God, there’s no stopping them when they get together. You’d think they were planning a revolution. They’ll be at Danny next, you see if they’re not.’

‘They can try,’ Rosie said. She remembered the conversation she’d had with Danny when war had been declared, just two months before their wedding. In no time at all recruiting officers had toured Ireland, gathering up zealous volunteers and Danny had assured Rosie that he was one man who had no intention of joining that war, or any other war come to that. ‘Why should I help England?’ he’d said. ‘They’ve gone to the aid of Belgium because Germany has invaded them, taking over their country and oppressing the people. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic, for isn’t that the very thing that England have been doing to Ireland for years? If I ever took up arms it would be to gain Ireland’s freedom. And I have no reason to do that, for Ireland will get Home Rule in the end. It’s there, ready to be implemented, and is only postponed because of the war. Eventually, Ireland will be a united country and hopefully without a shot being fired.’

So Rosie was able to say categorically, ‘Danny will never be tempted that way. Particularly now that he’s a family man.’

‘It’s good to be so sure of him,’ Sarah said. ‘And you’re right, of course, Danny has too much sense. At this minute I want to walk up to Sam and hit him across the top of the head with something heavy.’

Rosie laughed. ‘Och, Sarah, don’t mind him. Isn’t it just the beer talking?’

‘I wish it were just that, Rosie,’ Sarah said. ‘But he goes on the same way when he’s stone-cold sober. Of course, Shay encourages him too.’

Connie, who’d been keeping a weather eye on Rosie, for she was still officially lying in, came up to her at that point. ‘Don’t be doing too much now,’ she warned. ‘Or your milk will dry up.’

‘Aye, I know,’ Rosie said. She did feel weary all of a sudden and so she said, ‘I do feel a bit wobbly now you mention it. I’m away for a lie down, if that’s all right.’

Danny saw Rosie detach herself from his mother and sister and followed her into the bedroom. ‘You all right?’ he whispered, mindful of the sleeping baby as he sat down on the bed beside Rosie.

‘Aye, I’m grand,’ Rosie said. ‘Just a wee bit tired.’

‘Bed’s the best place then,’ Danny told her. ‘You get tucked up and I’ll bring you in a plate of goodies and a wee drink.’

Rosie was almost too weary to care about food, but she knew Danny would like to do something for her and with Connie having gone to so much trouble she felt it would be churlish to refuse. ‘Aye, that would be nice,’ she said.

Danny looked at his daughter snuggled in sleep and traced a finger gently across her cheek. ‘Wasn’t she a star today?’ he said. ‘Not a peep out of her. Even when the priest poured the water over her head, she just looked surprised.’

‘Aye,’ Rosie agreed and went on with a smile, ‘One of the old ones told me they should yell their heads off in order to release the devil inside them.’

‘Huh,’ Danny said. ‘Some of those old ones should have their mouths stopped up! Glad to see you’re too sensible to take any notice of it.’ He got to his feet and said, ‘You get yourself into bed, pet, and I’ll be back shortly.’ He kissed Rosie on the cheek and left her.

Rosie ate some of the food Danny brought her without much enthusiasm, though she was grateful for the hot sweet tea and then she settled down for a sleep.

She had dropped off and slept for an hour or so, when she was roused suddenly. She lay there for a moment as the last threads of sleep disappeared. She peered around the darkened room and saw the door swinging: someone must have stumbled against it and made the latch jump. The baby was mewling in the cradle, obviously awakened by the same thing. She wasn’t crying yet, but she would, Rosie knew. She would be too hungry to go off to sleep again.

As she lifted her she became aware of a conversation just outside the door and groaned as she recognised Sam’s voice. ‘You’ve seen nothing like it, man, I was there on the dockside in Dublin and one of the hospital ships was in harbour. The stretcher cases were already gone, but the rest…God, Danny, it would sicken you. There were fellows twitching with shellshock and others stone-blind being led along by a comrade. There were those in wheelchairs with missing limbs, or with their lungs eaten away with gas. ‘Course, they were counted as the lucky ones, for now there will be Irish bodies littering France, Belgium, and now bloody Turkey. Left to rot they are, to be eaten by the carrion crows.’

‘Lord, Sam, no one pretends war is pretty,’ Danny said. ‘Everyone knew some of those valiant men marching behind the British Army would not come back and others would be maimed and crippled. That’s the way of it. You don’t begin a war and expect no casualties.’

‘I know that,’ Sam said. ‘I’m not stupid. What angers me is that they fight for England, for Belgium, for France, yet their own country is oppressed.’

‘He’s right,’ Shay put in.

‘Aye, all right, but every man must do as he sees fit.’

‘You didn’t feel a need to join the British Army yourself?’ Sam asked.

‘I did not!’ Danny said emphatically. ‘I might not go around shouting about Home Rule like you two, but I have no great love for England and I wouldn’t put my head on the line for it.’

‘And would you for Ireland?’

‘What sort of question is that?’

‘An easy one to answer, I’d say.’

Danny sighed. ‘Essentially, I’m a man of peace,’ he said. ‘I’d fight if anyone belonging to me was threatened, but…’

‘And don’t you think they will be? When this damned war is over, England will renege on her promises of independence and Home Rule like she’s done so often before.’

‘Maybe,’ Danny said. ‘But if it’s on the statute book they must debate it sometime and with so many men giving their lives for England, they must feel they owe us something.’

‘Oh aye,’ Shay put in. ‘And will that stop the nonsense with Ulster and make Ireland properly united?’

‘Ulster can only opt out for six years.’

‘Danny, will you listen to yourself?’ Sam almost roared. ‘You’re as brainwashed as the rest of them. Six thousand years opt out, more like.’

Sam’s shout had caused Bernadette to jump on the breast where she was feeding and Rosie took her off and fastened her nightgown up, intending to close the door and help cut the noise out.

‘Even so…’ Danny put in.

‘Even so, even so,’ Shay mocked. ‘Don’t be so mealymouthed, Danny. Now, with England’s forces and energies directed at Germany and the rest of Europe, now is the time to take up arms and fight for independence.’

No-one noticed Rosie in the doorway, the men were sideways on to her and before them were Phelan and Niall – Shay’s young brother. The two lads were looking into Sam’s and Shay’s faces, hanging on their every word.

‘What we want to know, Danny, is are you for us, or against us?’ Shay demanded. ‘There is no middle way here. When the call comes for Ireland’s freedom, will you answer that call?’

Rosie pushed the door to before she heard Danny’s reply, but not before she saw the patriotic zeal burning in both of the young boys’ eyes. She returned to the bed a worried woman.

Everything settled down after the christening and Rosie told herself, whatever Sarah said, it had been the beer talking with the men that night. Shay had always been a hothead, but it was just talk, surely to God. She mentioned the reactions of Phelan and Niall to Danny, but he told her not to fret. ‘They’re but boys,’ he said, ‘not long out of the schoolroom altogether and boys that age love looking up to someone, having someone to admire.’

‘So you don’t think it’s anything to worry about?’

‘No,’ Danny said. ‘But best not say a word to Mammy anyway.’

It wasn’t long after this that Phelan began arguing with his parents. It was mainly because he wanted to go out at night and didn’t always want to say where he went or what time he would be back. Danny told his parents to go easy on him. ‘He works hard enough through the day and this is his leisure time,’ he told them. ‘It’s a stab at independence, I mind I was the same at his age.’

‘You never went far,’ Connie said.

‘Well, how far can Phelan get in the two or three hours he’s out? He’s probably at a neighbour’s house. He can’t go much further away, I mean, no harm will come to him.’

Danny saw no cause for concern and Rosie, who did, told herself she was making a mountain out of a molehill. The nights were still light enough through August and what could be nicer than walking the hills and dales of Wicklow on a balmy summer’s evening?

By the end of August it was the harvest, and that meant all hands to the pump. There was little time to blow one’s nose, never mind go out for a wee stroll, and Phelan was as tired as the rest at the day’s end and just as anxious to lie in his bed as his elder brother and father.

With the harvest safely in, there was the bog turf to cut and stockpile for the winter. Matt kept his youngest son hard at it beside him, mending fences, whitewashing the cottage and barn, repairing thin areas of the thatch, and any other jobs he could think of.

If Matt was hoping to tire Phelan out by his actions, he was mistaken, for Phelan was toughened by his work on the farm and as the nights drew in he began once more to spend many of his evenings away from the cottage. Connie often wondered where he found to go – if it was just to a neighbour’s house, as Danny thought, then why couldn’t he say so?

Rosie felt sorry for the lad in many ways. The two had got on well from the first and he was enchanted with Bernadette. It was Rosie he often sought out to talk to. She didn’t talk to him about the disagreements he had with his parents, she had no need to, and so he opened up to her. ‘They want to own me body and soul,’ he complained.

‘They’re concerned, Phelan.’

‘They think I’m a wean.’

‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘They know the age of you. It’s a habit you get into as a parent. See, wee Bernadette is just a baby, and I do everything for her, change her, feed her. Later I’ll hold her hand as she walks, pick her up if she falls and wipe the tears from her eyes. I’ll get her ready for school, buy her copy books and a school bag and fix her dinner.

‘And through it all, I’ll be there, caring for her, loving her, being the person to lean on. All that care and love cannot be turned off, like water from a tap. As you grow up, parents must adjust and sometimes it’s not so easy. Maybe if you talked more about what you’re doing, and who you’re meeting, it would make it better for them.’

Phelan’s reply lent an icy chill to Rosie’s spine. ‘If Mammy knew the half of what I do some nights, she’d worry herself into an early grave,’ he said.

‘Phelan, for God’s sake, don’t do anything silly.’

‘A man has to do what he believes in, even our Danny said that,’ Phelan told her with a hint of pride.

‘But you’re just…’ Rosie stopped herself in time from calling him a child. He would have really turned against her if she had. But to her he was, the lad was barely shaving yet. ‘You’re so young yet,’ she went on. ‘Things often look different as you grow up.’

‘I’ll never feel any different,’ Phelan promised, ‘not about this.’

Rosie felt helpless then and Phelan said, ‘No-one in the house knows of this but you. Promise me you’ll not tell on me?’

‘Not even Danny?’

‘Especially not Danny.’

That made Rosie uncomfortable, and she wondered later if she should have made that promise. But what had Phelan really told her? Nothing concrete, nothing she could go running to Danny about. What he’d said could mean anything or nothing. Maybe it was just a boy’s bravado.

In the end, she sought out Sarah – she thought Sam might know something and maybe talked to Sarah about it. ‘I wonder what those two rapscallions Phelan and Niall get up to going out in the black night,’ Rosie said casually to her one day. ‘Up to mischief, no doubt. Does Sam ever talk about it?’

‘No, never,’ Sarah said. ‘Sam can be as tight as a clam about some things. He reminds me of a wee boy at times. I mind Danny and his friends had secret societies when they were young and sent coded letters to each other and had passwords to go into what they called the clubhouse. It was nothing more than a dilapidated old shepherd’s hut, just off the track up the hillside. It’s probably dropped to bits entirely now. The times I crept up there with Elizabeth and tried to listen in. I didn’t think it was so grand looking even then, and Danny was furious with us of course.’

‘So, Sam is in a secret society then?’ Rosie joked. Maybe there was some truth in that – she knew the Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret organisation. Even the name of it was spoken in whispers and no-one knew exactly who was in it, but its objective was to obtain Home Rule for all of Ireland, Ulster included. It was said in homes about the place, for it was never discussed abroad, that it had grown out of the organisation called the Irish Volunteer Group and they had guns and ammunition.

‘I don’t know what Sam is involved in, probably nothing,’ Sarah said. ‘And what’s more, I’m not going to worry about it. I think he is just concerned about the injured men from the war and feels England were wrong to drag Irish men into a struggle that isn’t theirs. To an extent, he has a point, and I can feel as incensed as he can over the loss of life. But sure, Sam’s all talk,’ Sarah went on. ‘Wind and water, Mammy calls him, and she’s not far wrong.’

It was hardly reassuring, but Rosie told herself whatever Sam was into, it couldn’t affect Phelan and Niall. Dear God, they were barely fourteen. No society, organisation or whatever would use boys, surely to God?

She resolved to put it from her mind. She had plenty to occupy herself and plenty in her life to be happy about, especially Danny and their darling baby.

On Saturdays, Chrissie would come over, and sometimes even Geraldine was allowed to come with her. They usually brought Dermot too, for his temper if Minnie tried to stop him was tremendous, Chrissie told Rosie. ‘Course he’s never been told no all the days of his life, so it’s hard for him to take.’

Rosie knew that, yet Dermot couldn’t be faulted in his love for Bernadette and she remembered on her weekly visit home how he galloped from school in an effort to reach the farmhouse before Rosie left. He seldom made it as the nights began to draw in and Geraldine told her he would cry broken-heartedly if she’d left before he arrived.

As the baby grew, so that Rosie wasn’t feeding her every few minutes, Connie would insist that Rosie take a trip to town with her sisters as she had before. Someone had to go in once a week anyway to sell their surplus and collect supplies for the house, but after Rosie had the baby, Sarah or Elizabeth would usually do this. Connie seldom left the farm, often saying her gallivanting days were over.

Rosie and her sisters enjoyed the jaunts in on the cart. Even if they bought little, they met friends and exchanged news and gossip. And, as Christmas approached, Rosie was glad of the opportunity to buy some wee presents for the family.

This Christmas would be the first with a baby in the house, and Rosie couldn’t help feeling excited about it. Bernadette was a happy and contented child, now struggling to sit up. She had a smile for everyone and would lie for some time in her cradle, babbling to herself rather than crying. Rosie told herself she was truly well blessed.