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9

Silence to the Grave

‘JULIA SAYS IT happens with girls,’ Lydia said to her father in the hope that he would not probe further into the cause of his elder daughter’s indisposition.

It was after all true, Lydia reasoned with herself, it did only happen to girls although that was not what she meant when she said it. Wise beyond her sixteen years, she recognised that the episode was an occasion which called for her to dissemble.

‘She’s just exhausted,’ she added when she saw the look of concern on her Pappy’s face. ‘Exhausted,’ she repeated, ‘a good rest is all that she needs.’

Willis decided to be satisfied.

‘Some “women’s business”,’ he thought, and he did not enquire any further. Nor did he insist that Dr Knox should be called. He went up and sat beside Julia during the morning and tried to chat to her about the plans for the dance; but when she did not respond much and appeared to be drowsy, he left the room.

‘It’s just some “fly in the ointment”,’ he said to himself, ‘she’ll soon be back on form.’ But ‘the ointment’ in which Julia found herself was considerably more unguent than such preparations normally are and, as for extracting herself from it, that was to demand a delicacy of effort and degree of ingenuity that went well beyond the ordinary.

Julia knew, she told Lydia, from rumours in Trinity that there were some places even in Dublin where girls in her condition might go and have things cleared up; but the rumours left no doubt that this option was very dangerous. Some students, finding themselves in a similar predicament, had been known to brazen it out and mortify their parents by getting married in the Registry Office in Kildare Street; but even if this had been a possibility for Julia, and owing to Tarquin’s attitude it was not, she would never have been courageous enough to pursue it. The possibility of going to England and, unknown to anyone, sitting it out until the baby was born in some care home for what Lydia carelessly referred to as ‘fallen women’ until the baby was born and then having the infant adopted, was another alternative. As the sisters circled the various choices hour after hour, day after day, until Lydia was thoroughly worn out, both girls always came back to a consensus that this was the best solution and all that remained in question was how the news would be broken to their father, if at all.

Lydia felt that the shame of what had befallen his daughter would greatly affect and upset their father and she did not want him to be told but Julia was insistent that there was no alternative.

‘I’ll need money,’ she said, ‘Pappy will have to know.’

But, as it transpired, Pappy did not ‘have to know’.

Julia, without sharing her thoughts with Lydia or even consulting her sister about her idea, came up with a scheme – as dramatic and brazen as anything even she had ever contrived – which would alleviate her situation, satisfy her self-esteem, and solve her quandary conclusively.

It was dinnertime on the Thursday following her woebegone arrival at Knockfane the previous Saturday when Julia came downstairs for the first time. Lydia and her father were already seated in the dining room and, when Julia walked in, they were astounded. Not only did she appear quite well, but she was also fully restored. That is to say, her makeup was all in place and she was dressed in what she called her ‘country informals’: riding breeches (although she did not ride), a shirt and tie, and a well-cut tweed jacket. She looked quite splendid.

‘It’s great to have you back among us, Miss Julia,’ Rose said when she came in with a shepherd’s pie. ‘But Lord knows you’ve been a proper little soldier all week and God in his mercy was at your side. It’s Him we have to thank.’

‘That’ll do, Rose,’ Willis said, ‘just leave the tray on the sideboard. Miss Lydia will dish up.’

Over dinner, Julia did not refer to having been out of sorts but chatted as though there was nothing amiss. She thought she might take the car, she said, if Pappy did not need it, and go over to Coolowen in the afternoon. As Old Esdaile was so pleased to have her well again, he did not demur. When she arrived home after six and appeared to be exceedingly cheerful, her father was reassured.

That night, after they had all gone to bed and Lydia was settled under the blankets and at last catching up with her book, Julia burst into her room.

‘Lydia darling …’ she cooed, shutting the door behind her.

Lydia had heard these very same words from her sister less than a week previously when Julia had bounded into her bedroom in similar circumstances and she was not sure that she was at all happy at hearing them again now: she feared yet more of the exhausting discussions which she had been obliged to suffer since Julia’s arrival home. But before she had a chance to speak, Julia had moved to the end of her bed and grasped the rail.

‘I’m so, so happy, Lydia dearest,’ she said, ‘so, so happy. And I want you to be the first to know.’

Lydia was now perplexed. She had been the first to know that Julia was in trouble and very miserable and now, in less than a week, she was to be the first to know that her sister was deliriously happy. She did not understand. It crossed her mind that, by some stroke of good fortune, Julia may have had a little accident during the afternoon and, if that was the case, she hoped that Julia had done nothing to bring it upon herself.

‘How can you be, Julia?’ she said, ‘what has happened? I hope …’

Julia stopped her with a hug and then getting up from the bed, she twirled around the room like a dervish. Coming to a stop and again clasping the bed end, she announced:

‘I’m engaged, Lydia. Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘Engaged?’ said Lydia. ‘But how …? Have you been in touch with Tarquin? And the baby? I don’t understand, Julia.’

‘Fergal is coming over tomorrow morning to ask Pappy’s consent.’

‘Fergal?’ said Lydia, ‘but what about Tarquin?’

Julia ignored the interruption.

‘Fergal says he will always love the baby as though it were his own. He doesn’t mind in the least that it’s not. We’ll get married before it arrives.’

‘Julia! …’ said Lydia.

The room suddenly seemed chilly to her and she felt goose pimples forming on her arms. In the absence of knowing what to feel, she became frightened within herself. She stared at Julia, standing there at the end of the bed in her nightgown, looking flushed and even proud. It was a very different Julia to the one who had trembled there, like a waif off the streets, less than a week previously.

‘Are you sure, Julia? I mean … are you doing the right thing?’ said Lydia.

She thought of Fergal, how gentle and kind he was, and how much like an older brother he had always been to them.

‘I mean … there are other people to consider.’

‘Like who?’ said Julia. ‘Fergal thinks I have always loved him, he said so. And Pappy is bound to be pleased.’

When Fergal came over the following morning and asked her Pappy if he might marry Julia, Willis was as astonished by the development as Lydia had been. And then he thought to himself, ‘It all makes sense. They have been sweethearts all along, under my very nose and I never realised. There must have been a tiff which is why Julia was out of sorts and took to her bed, but now all is fine.’

Later that day Lydia asked Julia if she was going to tell their father about her condition and the circumstances of Fergal’s proposal.

‘Don’t be a goose, Lydia,’ Julia said, ‘of course not. Pappy doesn’t need to know and why should I worry him by telling him?’

‘But …’ said Lydia.

‘Fergal is happy that we get married straight away and that we both go to England for maybe a year. Our baby will be born over there …’

Lydia blinked. And then she blinked again.

‘Had Julia no conscience?’ she thought, ‘was there no limit to her effrontery? Talking about “our baby” in this way.’

‘… and no one will ever be any the wiser’, continued Julia.

‘But Pappy …’ said Lydia, ‘he, at least, will have to be told the truth.’

‘No, he won’t, Lydia,’ said Julia. ‘Only you and I and Fergal need ever know and it is a secret we will guard to the grave.’

As Lydia was only sixteen, the sentence of ‘silence to the grave’ which Julia thought fit to hand down seemed to her to be inordinately severe but Lydia accepted it, as she had always accepted everything from her sister, without further ado.