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6

Fergal

FERGAL WAS ONLY seventeen when he first saw Julia.

She was just nine at the time but that made no difference: he fell in love with her on the spot. It was within weeks of his having come to live in Ireland and his great-aunts had asked the Esdailes over to tea. Lydia was only just five and Edward a tough 11-year-old; but Julia, in spite of still being a child, had the poise and allure of a debutante.

‘She’s such an old-fashioned wee girl,’ Aunt Martha said, amused, when she overheard Julia asking Fergal why he was called Fergal.

‘I’m called Julia because I was born in July: on the fifteenth. If I’d been a boy, I would have been christened Swithin.’

When tea was finished, Aunt Eleanor, who always decided such things, told the children that they might get down from the table and go out and play.

‘Fergal will show you the goslings,’ she said, ‘and, if you’re very good, he might take you into the walled garden and let you pick some strawberries.’

They went out through the greenhouse.

‘This vine is hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old,’ said Julia.

‘Are you sure about that?’ said Fergal.

‘Of course,’ said Julia. ‘It’s the true vine. It says so in Liscarrig Church. “I am the True Vine” is painted around the arch above the Communion table. That’s why every year Miss Martha arranges baskets of the grapes there for the Harvest Festival.’

Their feet crunched on the gravel as they walked along the path through the trees towards the yard.

‘She’s still only a baby,’ Julia said when she saw Lydia picking out the white stones. ‘Leave her where she is. She’s always dragging out of me.’

Edward had already disappeared.

‘I’ll show you the goslings,’ said Fergal. ‘Come on Lydia, I want to see if you can count them.’

‘I don’t like ducks,’ said Julia. ‘They’re dirty.’

She stood where she was. She looked down at the ground and then, closing her mouth firmly so that her lips became almost white, she stared at Fergal. He chuckled to himself and smiled. Julia was used to defying her elders and betters, even on the smallest of issues, and she knew she was always successful: in the case of Edward and Lydia, she always just told them what to do.

As the years progressed Fergal became like an older brother to the three Esdailes. But with Julia there was always an additional edge. She soon discovered that she could make him do her bidding and, with the élan of someone a great deal older and more experienced, she sulked, flattered, teased, ignored, and made demands so that Fergal never quite knew where he stood. That was the way Julia liked it, and when all else failed, she would tell him she was going to marry him.

‘Pappy may not allow it, so you’ll have to secretly take me away in the night,’ she would say.

‘I’ll wait till you’re twenty-one,’ Fergal would tease.

‘No, before that,’ Julia would demand.

In appearance, Fergal was striking. He was very tall and he had his father’s thick black hair and blue eyes. But instead of the very pale skin that is normally found with those looks, he had a robust complexion; and, in place of the sad eyes of the native Irish, Fergal’s shone with laughter. In manner too he was a mixture. He had an easy, natural, friendliness and courtesy but, at the same time, an assurance that singled him out as a cut above the ordinary.

If Julia was smitten by Fergal, she was not the only one and, if his great-aunts had been anxious that he would have difficulty fitting in with their way of life, their fears in that respect were soon allayed. He did not seem to find life in a house with two middle-aged spinsters lonely or exactly dull. On the contrary, he enjoyed everything. He chatted to them as though they were friends of his own age; he ran errands for them, accepted their advice as to how things should be done on the farm, and even teased them on occasion by poking fun when Eleanor was laying down the law. He was anxious to please, anxious to learn, and within a couple of months his aunts were devoted to him

‘The only thing that makes me sad,’ Martha said, ‘is that Honor never knew what a pleasure he could be.’

One aspect of his new life in Ireland, however, left Fergal confounded. When he first came to Coolowen he went to the Catholic chapel on Sundays while his aunts went to the Protestant church. But after a while he did not bother to go every Sunday and on occasion he accompanied the sisters to Morning Prayer: he did not make a choice between the two options – he did not think he needed to – as the fact of the matter was that he had hardly any feeling for religion of any persuasion. Furthermore, his education under the Benedictines in England had done little to prepare him for the form of priest-fearing Catholicism that he encountered in Ireland. If he was confused as to which church he should attend and how much it mattered, he was so with some justification. It did not help that the convention in Ireland at the time was that Catholic churches, which were generally enormous, were referred to as chapels whereas Protestant churches, which as a rule were tiny, were called churches.

The spire of St Malachy’s in Liscarrig soared up above the little town as a landmark that could be seen on a clear day from as far away as the Hill of Mullach, twelve miles distant to the south. The spire and the enormous structure to which it was attached – a huge building in an elaborate architectural style that might loosely be described as French Gothic – was quite out of proportion to the scale of Liscarrig itself and, as a result, it seemed to look down upon all the other buildings in the town with an air of condescension. This condescension was particularly striking when St Malachy’s was confronted by another structure at the opposite end of Church Street. Tucked in behind an aged and crumbling stone wall was a building which seemed almost ashamed of its low-key understatement and lack of architectural style. A square tower which looked old and might have housed a bell was its only claim to distinction and even the tower was no higher than the aged beech trees planted nearby. This was St John’s. On Sunday mornings, the tiny trickle of Protestants, the Esdailes among them, who dribbled into St John’s for Morning Prayer were dignified by being members of the Church of Ireland even though they were representative of only a tiny minority among the population of Ireland as a whole. By way of contrast, the devout shoals of Catholics who thronged into St Malachy’s at the same time represented the majority population; but they, nevertheless had to be content with being merely Church of Rome.

Fergal’s indifference as to which church he attended was understandable in a stranger new to Ireland; but if he thought that his careless and carefree attitude could continue indefinitely in a country where religion mattered so very much, he was mistaken; and his aunts, if they had thought about it at all, were greatly mistaken too. But they had not thought about it and, accordingly, they were jolted all the more when, almost a year after Fergal’s coming to Coolowen, they received a visit, as exceptional as it was unexpected, from Father Costelloe, the parish priest of Athcloon.

‘This is a rare occasion, Father,’ Eleanor said to him when she came through to the hall. ‘The last time we saw you was when you were good enough to call when our dear sister passed away and that’s nearly four years ago now. How time flies! May we offer you tea?’

Father Costelloe said no.

‘Miss Martha is in the sitting room,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you too.’

She gestured to the priest to follow her as she led the way out to the back hall and towards the sitting room.

‘We’ve a surprise visitor, Martha,’ she said when she came into the room.

Martha was seated by the window doing needlework. Father Costelloe shook her hand as Eleanor beckoned to him to take a seat.

He was a small man and he looked even smaller on account of being far too fat. As a result he had no neck to speak of so that it was hard to be certain if his clerical collar, with just a thumbnail of white at the front, was anchored to his chin or his chest. It was obvious that he cared little about his appearance and if he seemed rough and ready – which is how he did seem – he was clearly proud to be so. Father Costelloe was conscious that he was ‘a man of the people’ but he ruled the people with the proverbial rod of iron. Making it his business to be familiar with the private affairs of every one of his parishioners, he regarded it as his calling to meddle in those affairs as he deemed appropriate; and ‘appropriate’ to Father Costelloe meant with unbridled impunity. His parishioners claimed to have a respect for him but it was a respect born out of necessity and tempered by fear.

On this sunny June afternoon, in the sitting room at Coolowen, it did not take him long to address the purpose of his visit and, clearing his throat in a manner which caused Martha to fear that he might be about to spit, he began.

‘You have your nephew living with you now,’ he said, ‘a grand lad by all accounts.’

He grinned rather than smiled as he said it. Martha noticed the yellowed teeth.

‘Yes,’ said Eleanor, ‘it’s such a help having him here for the farm.’

‘And company for us too,’ said Martha.

‘That’s just what I wanted to have a word with you about,’ said Father Costelloe. ‘Father Flynn in Liscarrig didn’t like to call himself, him being just the curate, thought it would come better from myself.’

‘What’s that, Father?’ said Eleanor.

‘Well now, your nephew – Fergus is it?’

‘Fergal,’ said Eleanor.

‘Fergal,’ said Father Costelloe. ‘He’s been seen coming out of the Protestant church on a Sunday morning when he should have been to Mass.’

‘Should have been to Mass, Father?’ said Eleanor.

‘Yes,’ said Father Costelloe, ‘he’s a Catholic, isn’t he?’

‘Well, yes,’ said Eleanor, ‘but his mother is never too much bothered about which church he goes to, and nor is Fergal himself for that matter.’

‘That’s all right in England, Miss Sale. But here in Ireland, by the good grace of the bishops, when a man is a Catholic, the chapel is where he belongs: and every Sunday too.’

Eleanor did not immediately grasp the topic which Father Costelloe was addressing or the seriousness of his intent; but she was taken aback by the novelty of someone speaking to her so firmly.

‘I’m sure we can’t force Fergal to go to Mass, Father, or even to our own church for that matter. He’s old enough to know his own mind,’ she said.

She moved in her chair as though she was about to get up.

‘Are you sure you won’t have tea, Father?’

‘No one is talking about force, Miss Sale,’ said Father Costelloe. ‘It’s just that the local people don’t like it.’

‘Don’t like what, Father? Our nephew seems to be very well regarded by everyone.’

‘They don’t like seeing a Catholic going into the Protestant church when everyone knows it is forbidden. And they don’t like that he doesn’t go to Mass every Sunday when it’s the rule that he must.’

The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed with Eleanor’s desire to be hospitable and friendly severely challenged.

‘As I mentioned, Father,’ said Eleanor, ‘we can’t oblige our nephew to do anything …’

Father Costelloe interrupted her. He had not yet finished.

‘People could become “uncooperative” like,’ he said, ‘and none of us would want an upset like that in the neighbourhood. Your Reverend West is a sound man. He and I often have a chat.’

As Martha had not been taking part in the conversation, she had been able to listen more intently to what Father Costelloe had been saying and when she heard the words ‘uncooperative, like’ – she detested the vulgar expression – she rested her needle in the pincushion on the arm of her chair. She readily determined that, although the priest had stated that he was not talking about ‘force’, that was precisely what he was talking about; and when he spoke of the local people being possibly ‘uncooperative’, she was confident that she understood what he meant by that too. She was reminded of reading a year or two previously of events down south where a Catholic mother, with a Protestant husband, had sent their children to the Protestant school. The local priest denounced the couple from the pulpit and that led to some Protestants becoming virtual outcasts; and, hard though it was to imagine – the Sales had been in Coolowen for so very long – she thought what such a situation could mean to her and Eleanor. She became suddenly frightened.

‘Uncooperative?’ she heard Eleanor say. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Father.’

‘Father Costelloe is just speaking on behalf of Father Flynn, Eleanor,’ said Martha.

She turned towards their visitor.

‘We’ll have a word with Fergal,’ she said, ‘won’t that do, Father?’

‘I’m speaking on behalf of the bishop himself, Miss Martha, and the rule of the bishop is Mass every Sunday.’

He was flushed but he was not agitated and, as he stood up, the anger in his attitude was all the more obvious. But it was an anger which went beyond any of Fergal’s transgressions. Father Costelloe was not intimidated at finding himself in the sitting room at Coolowen and he was not intimidated by the graciousness of the Misses Sale. But he was angered by them and angered, according to his view, by everything they stood for; and it was an anger which went beyond religious differences to probe the wider realm of Ireland’s history as it stretched back over the centuries.

‘It’s been very nice of you to call, Father,’ said Eleanor.

She stood up and pushed the bell by the fireplace.

‘They say there will be more rain next week. It’s been such a wet month: no growth at all. Everything is behind in the garden.’

Their maid, Doris, came to the door.

‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ said Father Costelloe. ‘Good day to you now, ladies.’

He hardly waited to shake their hands before following Doris out of the room.

After he had gone, neither Martha nor Eleanor spoke. Martha returned to her stitching and Eleanor took up The Leader. The sisters wanted to be silent and it was several days before either of them referred to the conversation that had taken place.

‘It could develop into a shocking business,’ said Martha. ‘It would mean none of the shops would supply us, not even with the Emergency rations to which we are entitled. And if it went on, others in the parish … Dr Knox … the Holts … they would suffer too.’

‘And all because of dear Fergal,’ said Eleanor.

The aunts did not say anything immediately to Fergal but when it came to Sunday, they suggested that he should go to Mass.

‘It’ll stand you in good stead to be seen by the local people,’ they told him. ‘It’s a country thing. Playing one’s part in the community, and all that.’

Fergal did not demur and, after he dropped Martha and Eleanor off at church, he drove on up to the chapel. With one excuse or another, the sisters saw to it that the same happened on subsequent Sundays as well, so that after a while it became a habit.

A habit is all it was as far as Fergal and his aunts were concerned but it was habit enough to satisfy Father Costelloe.