Читать книгу The Family on Paradise Pier - Dermot Bolger - Страница 9

December 1917

Local Catholics had such long memories that Mrs Ffrench was careful not to betray any hint of proselytism about her activities. Older people still cursed the visiting Protestant clergymen who had tried to steal souls during the famine by offering soup to any starving wretch lured into attending their church services. Last year a Dublin Protestant was sacked after his Catholic employers discovered how he served tea each Sunday at the Free Breakfasts for the Poor Protestant Missionary Charity. Mrs Ffrench thought that it was easy for her fellow Baha’is in America to advocate Baha’i children’s parties as vehicles by which children of different social classes might learn to intermingle and be gently taught the truth, but in this remote part of Donegal any form of preaching was dangerous. Her husband might not think so, because Commodore Ffrench feared nothing. But, with the Bolshevik unrest in Russia, his leave was cancelled and, without him, their house felt empty and the winter hills desolate.

Still, with a war on it was unpatriotic to look glum. There was much that a woman could do. Last week Mrs Goold Verschoyle had hosted a Red Cross musical evening, attended by many young officers from the warships anchored in Killybegs Harbour. Mrs Ffrench had invited several to dine in Bruckless House, impressing them by her knowledge of Northern Russian ports. Not that Commodore Ffrench ever divulged naval secrets, but his last letter had been filled with a boyish excitement about his latest mission. The northern route into Russia was always important as a line for supplies to be ferried into the ice-free port of Murmansk and sent on by rail to St Petersburg. However it had been an unglamorous naval backwater until the recent revolution in Russia, when it now became vital to prevent Murmansk and Archangel falling into the hands of the dangerous Bolsheviks who had seized power. This was the moment of destiny which her husband had been waiting for. Over dinner the officers had agreed that if he could help to fight off the Bolsheviks and hold these ports he would return a hero.

When the Tsar abdicated in February nobody suspected that the Bolsheviks would seize power – indeed few people, including Mrs Ffrench, knew much about them. But the world was out of kilter in these days of incessant bloodshed, with nothing predictable. The Dublin rebels – booed off the streets last Easter, with James Connolly and the other leaders executed – had recently been welcomed home from internment camps like returning heroes instead of hooligans who had levelled their own city. Mrs Ffrench was glad to have a Baha’i spiritual master like Abdul-Baha to make sense of these changes. His instruction was to spread light and human fellowship through every class and creed she came in contact with.

This was her intention behind today’s party. Every child from Bruckless and Dunkineely was invited. The attendance – smaller than she hoped for – was a curious mix, with prosperous Protestant children who were used to enjoying her gardens mingling uneasily with a few local poor Catholics. The better-off Catholic tradesmen had kept their children away. They liked the notion of their offspring taking refreshment with the gentry on her lawn, but not if they had to mix with their own lower social classes.

At first there was little mixing, as Protestant children formed one clique and the Catholics another, too ill at ease to enjoy themselves. She suspected that some Catholics had never attended any type of party, let alone an afternoon one. For a terrible moment she even envisaged a fight breaking out, a miniature re-enactment of the riots in Moscow. The servants were thinking this too, from the way they whispered to each other, but then the arrival of Eva Goold Verschoyle put everyone at ease because children from all creeds were comfortable with her.

Although Mrs Ffrench told people that every child was always welcome at Bruckless House, few ever called. Yet she never visited the Goold Verschoyle household without seeing village urchins wandering freely about the tennis court or sitting with Eva in the old coach house, taking turns to use her paints and brushes, laughing with their hands streaked in watercolours. Eva quickly became the centre of the party now, not even conscious of how she drew the children into the games she suggested. Perhaps it was her size, with many children towering over her. Or maybe it was her aura. At fifteen, Eva was older than her years in some respects, yet far younger in others.

Soon Mrs Ffrench found herself peripheral to her own party, a bystander who would love to swing a four-year-old girl around like Eva did or have toddlers cluster about her skirt while she told stories. She kept trying to mingle and talk to each guest but a glass wall existed with the village children that she could not break down.

Still, she loved the sounds of laughter and was delighted at having risked holding the party outdoors during the few hours of winter sunlight. There was real Baha’i happiness by the end as children relaxed with each other. Village children waved as they walked away in clusters, with the Protestants being collected in ponies and traps. Finally only she and Eva were left, excitedly discussing the party on a sofa in the library while, outside, serving girls cleared away the mess on the lawn.

She offered to have her man drive Eva home, but Eva insisted that she loved the two-mile walk in twilight. Mrs Ffrench knew that she would be safe because something about the child’s innocence suggested that Eva could not be hurt so long as she never left Donegal. Eva sympathised at how lonely Christmas would be in Bruckless House with Mr Ffrench away and asked would the Hawkins family ever come back to visit.

‘I suspect not, dear. Bruckless holds too many memories. These days a lot of ghosts sit on empty chairs at dinner. It would be hard for them not to keep seeing Oliver in their minds swimming down at our pier.’

Mrs Ffrench stopped, surprised by her tears. Grief was a sly thief always waiting in ambush. She had thought she was over the worst of the anguish at losing her two brothers, but last month’s news that her sister’s husband had also been killed had brought back her dreams of blood. When she woke some nights now she was afraid to touch the sheets, having dreamt that they were saturated in blood. She hated the three-card-trickery of these insidious dreams. In them she could be back with her brothers in their nursery, watching them play with boxes of tin soldiers. Next moment they would be wading through barbed wire and foxholes where dying men screamed, still only boys holding their tin soldiers, oblivious to danger. Then they would become her own unborn sons walking towards the German guns, not hearing her screaming to warn them until they were shot and fell. She always woke with a start from such dreams, her hand instinctively reaching down between her legs where she bled every month whether her husband was home on leave or not. Five years of marriage, stained by unwelcome blood. The Commodore had devised a code so that she could send him news after each visit home. They had names chosen if it was a boy or a girl and a locked room set aside to be a nursery. At thirty-one she was still young enough. When his victory at Murmansk was achieved, he would come home for them to try again, as often and with as much passion as it took. To compensate for all the deaths, her first child would be a boy.

Mrs Ffrench became aware of tears also in Eva’s eyes.

‘Don’t mind me being silly, dear.’ She put her hand on the young girl’s arm.

‘Sometimes I blame myself for Oliver dying,’ the girl said. ‘You see, Mrs Ffrench, I didn’t want his family to come back because of Beatrice. I wanted to keep Art to myself. It’s just too terrible how I got my wish.’

‘You can’t blame yourself, child. Thousands of boys are slaughtered every week. Men will have to answer to God for this one day, but you have nothing to answer for.’

Something about the wide-eyed fifteen-year-old reminded Mrs Ffrench of herself at that age. Eva would also be a seeker after truth. Mrs Ffrench remembered how isolated she had felt as a girl until she stumbled by seeming chance upon a reference to Abdul-Baha and his beliefs. Now she knew that The Master had been guiding her life on a quest to find a man sufficiently open to embrace her beliefs. Her conversion of the Commodore meant that there were now four Baha’is in Ireland. She wanted to thrust copies of World Fellowship and other Baha’i publications into Eva’s hands but each seeker needed to find their own path. Instead she decided to let the girl share The Master’s work in a different way.

‘Will you help me light my lamps?’ she asked, knowing that Eva loved this task.

‘Yes, please,’ the girl replied.

Dusk had set in already. The lamps could not be seen from the road where they would attract attention but any walker by the pier would see them shine in eleven windows. This was a vital task and some nights Mrs Ffrench woke, fearful that one might have burnt out while she slept.

The greatest moment of her life was travelling to London this spring to meet Abdul-Baha in person. She could still see the Master’s piercing eyes as he announced that she could cause the illumination of all Ireland if she lit four thousand lamps in one year. Mrs Ffrench had broken this down to mean eleven lamps to be lit on three hundred and sixty days and just eight lamps on the last five nights. Initially she felt foolish, knowing that the servants considered her behaviour odd, but recently they seemed to understand because they smiled when passing her each evening, as if silent conspirators. She took it as a sign that the Master was right. If the lamps were having this effect in her home, then perhaps they were spreading harmony in other houses across Ireland without her knowledge. The maids knew to fill each lamp full of oil but never to light them. That was her strangely comforting task. But tonight she let Eva help, walking from room to room through the empty house.

Finally the task was finished and Mrs Ffrench saw her guest to the door, knowing that Eva would pause on the lawn to count each lamp that beckoned to her and to Ireland and across the seas to where her husband knew that they were being lit. Eva said good night and Mrs Ffrench had to resist a impulse to embrace her. The thought of all the marvellous Goold Verschoyle children being home for Christmas filled her with hope. She would carefully choose presents for each one, making sure that they knew her door was always open. Sometimes she imagined a fantasy where young Brendan was trapped here by a snowfall and she was able to mind him for some days until the road cleared.

Mrs Ffrench stood in her doorway until Eva was out of sight and there was nothing for it but to close the door. Lizzy, the parlourmaid, was descending the stairs. Mrs Ffrench smiled to put her at ease.

‘That was a good day, Lizzy.’

‘It was indeed, mam.’

‘The party went well.’

‘Yes, mam. Will there be anything else, mam?’

‘No.’

The girl hesitated. Mrs Ffrench suspected that some servants, including Lizzy, might feel happier in a house where the mistress never addressed them except with an order.

‘Have you the lamps lit, mam?’

‘Yes, Lizzy.’

‘We do the same for you, mam.’

‘What do you mean?’ Mrs Ffrench was puzzled.

‘If we’re passing the church, the other maids and me always light a candle for you. That’s what us Catholics do for special intentions. All of us are praying that when the Commodore comes home things will go well for you and it will be a boy.’

Mrs Ffrench was momentarily too shocked to speak.

Suddenly aware that she had been too forward, the maid went to apologise, then realised that this could only make matters worse.

‘I light my lamps for a different reason,’ Mrs Ffrench replied icily.

‘Yes, mam. I wouldn’t know, mam.’

‘Your Master and I…’ Mrs Ffrench stopped in time, shocked that she was explaining herself in front of a servant. ‘That will be all, Lizzy.’

‘Yes, mam.’

The girl curtsied and scurried away. Mrs Ffrench entered the library that was in darkness except for the lamp in the window. They would be whispering about her in the kitchen like they always whispered. She had tried to create a household where servants were not in dread of their mistress, but she had never envisaged that they would feel pity for her. She hoped that no maid would come in to stoke the fire. She wanted to be alone. She had never felt so utterly alone. Mrs Ffrench took a deep breath. This war would pass. Her husband would return from Murmansk as a hero, having fought off the menace of Bolshevism. Her bed linen would be stained with blood, only this time good cleansing blood from her labours in childbirth. She would welcome every wave of pain, every push that it took. She would be made whole then, she would illuminate Ireland and her child would illuminate her life. The Master had ordained this ordeal to test her faith, but she would be strong and learn to be patient. Rocking herself softly back and forth, Mrs Ffrench waited for her true life to begin.