Brigid the Girl from County Clare

by Vicky Adin

  “Any one else hurt?”

  “What, like you? There’s a few wi’ bruises, but nothing more, but I tell you the last two days has seemed like a lifetime down here. Everyone’s that pothered. It’ll take days yet for nerves to settle. Oh, I dried your clothes and they’re in your bag – they’ll need a bit of mending. And that cousin of yours is asking after ye. But Matron sent him away.”

  “Jamie. Poor boy, I must see him. He’ll be that worried.”

  Brigid tried to stand, but Sally put her hand on her shoulder. “Sit still, lass. I told him ye were fine. Just to give ye a while.”

  Brigid’s bruises developed rainbow hues as the days passed, her muscles stiffened and she ached in every bone. She slept uneasily, and time moved slowly.

  Sunday, 31st October 1886

  Shut up down here, I don’t know what’s gone on in the last few days, and I’m that worried.

  That girl Maggie Jamie’s hankering after be a weird one, and her brother Michael has fair taken against him. I kept my eye on them for more than half a week before the storm and all seemed fine, but I can’t be sure all is still well.

  Whatever Maggie said to her brother I may never know, but Jamie and him shook hands and agreed to ignore one another. Long may it stay that way, although I’ve not seen much of our Jamie since.

  The two of them manage to find ways of bumping into each other at every opportunity, even though she’s got her poor motherless little nieces to look after. And Jamie behaves more like an excited puppy most of the time, but I can’t help worry Maggie is playing a game.

  She wants to be friendly with me and I’ve learnt something about her. I know she’s been living away from home, working as a companion maid or some such to a spinster lady in England since she was fourteen. Maggie likes to copy her way of speaking, and says she learnt a few things about how their world worked.

  I think Maggie is after a husband who can provide her with those finer things in life she’s seen. But what does she want with our Jamie? He’s the kindest and most generous-hearted and hard-working soul you could ever wish for, but knows nothing beyond a farming life and labouring with his hands. I can’t see it working out between them, but feel helpless.

  Then there’s that toff from first class. He’s been following me, I’m sure of it. We seem to meet up nearly every time I’m up top. He always says hello, wishes me well and goes on his way, but then he seeks me out again when I’m alone and stops to chat or watch me making lace.

  And he says such nice things about me. All in a polite and proper manner, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how I should behave around him. I’m all aflutter.

  Gradually, life on board returned to its monotonous rhythm as they sailed onwards. The sea became a millpond as the barometer climbed higher with each passing hour. Beads of perspiration shone on every face, and people began to shed as many clothes as modesty allowed. Most simply sat in a semi-trance to conserve energy, in whatever place afforded them shade or a slight breeze.

  “Do ya want summat to eat?” asked Sally.

  Brigid shook her head.

  “Me, neither. I’m that mafted.”

  “Maybe it’ll be cooler tonight.”

  But it wasn’t.

  During the storm, meals had become a random event instead of the regimented affair they had got used to, with only bread, biscuits and dried meats readily available – not that many were in a fit state to eat anything. Now the seas were calm and stomachs had returned to normal, mealtimes were restored but most people found it too hot and ate little.

  In the end, her need to be out in the fresh air rather than in the stuffy, unbearably hot confines below deck pushed Brigid to get up. Gritting her teeth, she forced one foot after the other up the ladder. By the time she reached the deck, her face was red, her breath came in short gasps and her legs trembled with the effort. She sat down in the shade, happy to watch people while she rested.

  Closing her eyes, she listened to the susurration of wind and waves and voices around her. A shadow crossed her face, paused, moved on. She opened one eye to see what had caused it and was startled to find Philip Harrison-Browne standing a few feet away, smiling.

  He doffed his hat. “I’m pleased to see you up and around again, Miss O’Brien. I hope you are recovering from your ordeal.”

  “Aye, I am, thank ye, sir,” she murmured. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she looked up at him. “Ah. I’m ... I wasn’t ... Forgive my appearance ...” Dressed in a simple cotton skirt and fitted lace-edged blouse, Brigid felt at a disadvantage.

  “It’s I who should ask for forgiveness – for my intrusion. I just wanted to see how well you were faring. It would be a shame if that pretty smile disappeared.” He winked, donned his hat and walked away.

  She was at a loss to think what she should make of such behaviour and was about to move somewhere else in case he returned when Maggie found her.

  “Oooh, I’m so pleased to find ye at last. I wanted to talk to you. The girls have been a real worry. I came to ask y’re advice, but then I heard what happened. You’re lucky to be alive, I hear.”

  “I’ll be right as rain again soon enough. What about the girls? Wouldn’t Miss O’Reilly or the doctor have been better people to ask?”

  “Suppose so.” Maggie shrugged affably. “I just didn’t think. Laura and Jane were right ill, but they’ve bounced back since the waves have gone. Even the heat doesna bother them. They’re eating an’ all now but I can hardly touch a bite.”

  “Me neither. But the broth is good. And a cup of tea’s refreshing, I’ve found.”

  Maggie didn’t comment, just stared out to sea. Brigid didn’t really want to know what Maggie was in a dither about – she needed time to think about ‘that man’ and focus her energies on getting better – but good manners demanded she ask.

  “What is it, Maggie? What’s plaguing you?”

  The girl shrugged slightly. “There’s so much time to think on this ship and I’m that anxious about what’s been and what’s to come.”

  Brigid sighed. It seemed Maggie intended to get something off her chest and had chosen her as the sounding board. “What made you decide to go to Australia?” urged Brigid, hoping to encourage the girl to speak freely.

  “Michael.”

  Brigid sighed again. One-word answers would not get them anywhere. She tried afresh with a more leading question. “What did he have to do with it? Didn’t you tell me your ma was sick?”

  Maggie nodded and bit her lower lip, surreptitiously wiping her eye. “It’s a long story.”

  “Aye, well, time is the one t’ing we have. How about you start at the beginning?”

  Brigid eased herself into a more comfortable position, rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes again.

  Maggie’s voice was soft as she began her tale. “It all started before Miss Jenkins passed. You remember, I said I worked for Miss Jenkins.”

  “Aye, I do.”

  “Well, Michael wrote and said I was to come home. Ma needed me, he said, to look after her. His wife – Eliza – was with child again and couldn’t cope with the added strain.” Maggie scoffed. “I knew it weren’t that. It was more like Ma wouldn’t let the woman near her. She didn’t like Eliza one little bit. She mighta been little, but that one had a fearsome temper. But, I couldn’t leave ... Miss Jenkins was old and frail and slipping from this life. I couldn’t just leave her.”

  Alarmed, Brigid’s eyelids shot up when Maggie gripped her arm. Brigid turned to look at the girl whose eyes bored into hers.

  “You must understand. I couldn’t leave her alone. She had been good to me and ... I’d ... I’d grown quite fond of her, and ... she ... she didn’t have anyone else.”

  Maggie got up and paced the deck in front of Brigid, getting more agitated by the moment. But she sounded false, too agitated and too intense for Brigid’s liking. Loyalty was one thing, but this show of passion was something else.

  “Then, about two months
later, Miss Jenkins died. For several days, me and the other servants didn’t know what to do next, but then this man turns up. He says he’s the lawyer handling the estate for the family who wanted to sell up.”

  Maggie abruptly stopped her pacing and sat next to Brigid. “I didn’t even know she had family. They never came to see her when she was alive.” Just as suddenly, she was on her feet again. “Anyway, I was dismissed along with the cook and the handyman, but they never gave us any references – because they didn’t know us, they said.”

  She stopped pacing and stared out across the ocean, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the rails. Brigid waited, listening to the cries of the seabirds and watched as one swirled and dived with the current of air. Maggie’s thoughts seemed to drift away with the bird as her eyes followed its path high into the sky.

  After a moment Brigid spoke. “That hardly sounds fair, I know, but it’s not unheard of. What happened next?”

  Maggie startled, as if jolted from a dream.

  “Oh ... when I finally got home Michael tells me Ma had passed.” Her fevered voice raced on. “I was so shocked. He never even bothered to tell me when it happened! I couldn’t believe he’d do such a thing, but it was that wife of his, I reckon. Even so, I’ll never forgive him. Never. No matter what.”

  Brigid was disturbed by Maggie’s obvious bitterness and animosity towards her brother. Why was she here with Michael if she was that angry with him? As if hearing the unspoken question, Maggie barely paused for breath. “So there I was with no job, no references and my mother gone. I was already grieving, and then the blow of my mother’s death on top of everything ...”

  By this time, her tears flowed steadily and she mopped at them ineffectually with a lacy handkerchief.

  Brigid stood and put her arm around the girl’s shoulder to comfort her a little. “I’m right sorry to hear it, that I am.”

  Maggie gave a weak smile. “I had no time to even think about it before Michael tells me I have to stay and help Eliza. They had the two girls, you see, but they’d lost another and were worried for the new one about to enter the world. So I stayed. We rubbed along well enough, but she ended up treating me more like her maid with all the work I had to do. She was nothing but lazy.”

  Maggie stopped speaking, and took a few shuddering breaths. Brigid found a clean hanky and gave it to her. Maggie wiped her face and blew her nose, which seemed to restore her a little.

  Brigid sat closer. “Go on.”

  “Not long after she went into labour things started going wrong. I sent for the midwife, but she couldn’t come straight away; by the time she got there Eliza was bleeding badly and even the midwife couldn’t stop it. We lost them both that night. It was a little boy too. Michael was fair spooked and got oh so angry. He stormed out of the house and didn’t come back till the next day.”

  Brigid’s eyes watered and her heart thumped at the sad story. She took back her initial reservations. The girl had certainly had a rough time. She needed a friend.

  “That’s a rare painful story, Maggie.” A moment’s silence passed while Brigid thought of something more heartening to say. “But I remember, when things got bad at home, my dear old granny used to say ‘we must not dwell on what’s done, but look to what’s ahead. That way lies hope’. I used to take comfort from her words. Maybe you can too.”

  “Hope. Yes, that’s it. I need hope. That’s why ...” Maggie’s eyes sparkled with possibility before she dropped her gaze. Dabbing at her nose, she furtively glanced at Brigid from beneath her eyelashes.

  Her voice quivered as she took up her story again. “You see, things got more wretched after that. The day after the funeral Michael came home to say he’d booked passages to Australia.” She raised her distraught, tear-stained face towards Brigid, her voice stronger, aroused. “I didn’t know what to think, and he wouldn’t even talk to me about it. Not that I had any idea what I wanted to do, or where I could go. He was the only family I had left ... but then he just said he was the man in the family and I was to do as I was told.” She stopped to gulp air into her lungs. “So here I am – nursemaid to his two girls and him bossing me around all the while – with no idea where my life is going any more.”

  Brigid sympathised. They’d both been forced into emigrating by circumstances beyond their control, but something made Brigid uneasy. Something Jamie told her, about how Maggie had stood up to her brother and how she’d told him not to pay Michael any mind. That he couldn’t boss her around. Her initial distrust of the girl resurfaced.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk with you ... about your Jamie. He’s been a right help. He’s made me laugh and think better of myself. So I’m hoping you won’t mind if he and I get ... um, friendly.”

  Cunning minx, thought Brigid, trying to get me on side. “Can’t say I know you well enough to say, but Jamie is his own man now. If it’s what he wants.”

  Maggie grasped Brigid’s hands and came over all smiles. “Oh, thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. I must go tell him.”

  Before Brigid could speak, the girl walked briskly away with no sign of the distress she had shown only minutes earlier. Brigid stared after her.

  Now what is she playing at?

  Tuesday, 2 November 1886

  We’ve been at sea for nearly two weeks, and I no longer feel as fearful as I once did. If I can survive that storm, I can survive anything. I can’t imagine anything worse happening, and that gives me hope.

  My bruises are healing, but the more I think about what happened during the storm, the more I give thanks to Our Lord for saving me. I could easily have gone over the side. He must have been watching over me and given me the strength to hold on as long as I did. I wonder why He wasn’t watching over that young man who was killed when he struck his head. I can still see him lying there beside me. It haunts me that such a young life has been cut short. Why him and not me? The priest did his best and gave him a grand send off, but his young brother was that distraught. I felt very strange as they dropped the body, tied in a canvas bag, over the side. There’s something not quite right about it in my mind, but the captain said there was no other choice in this heat.

  A bout of whooping cough broke out amongst some of the children. We were told two little ones died, but the women in the single quarters didn’t catch it. We said prayers for the wee souls. There are several clergy on board, and plenty of chance for people to clear their minds and hearts with prayer and confession.

  The routine of ship life helps break up the long days, but the journey’s been something to endure not enjoy, despite some fun times.

  Mondays have turned into washdays. Our fresh water is kept for drinking water, so we have to use seawater the sailors scoop up with buckets. But it makes the clothes very stiff and scratchy.

  Tuesdays I spend making lace with the other women. We can get into a grand set-to on the worth of the various forms. My crocheted Clones lace and my needlepoint Kenmare lace are finer than most, although there are others like me who can do several different styles. I’ve watched women stitching the fine-drawn needle-made Limerick lace, while others do the appliqué work of Carrickmacross. One or two can do Mountmellick embroidery with its padded and raised flowers. We all hope to make money from our products amongst the wealthy when we reach Australia.

  Wednesdays, the clergy run classes for the older children. I’ve started helping them to learn to read and write. Thursday is a sad day. I will write a letter home every week, knowing I can’t send it, but I’ll feel closer to Ma and the others when I do. I miss home so much: the gentle rain, the spongy mosses underfoot, the soft colours, even the smell of the peat fire, but mostly I miss Ma’s comforting presence.

  Fridays are the oddest of days with little to do that’s different, and Saturdays are when we have games; in the evening we often have a singsong.

  I don’t want to think about my worries with Jamie and Maggie today.

  Nor about Mr Harrison-Browne who is becoming pe
rsistent.

  4

  The Art of Coquetry

  Wednesday, 3rd November 1886

  “Look at that, Jamie.” Brigid pointed to an unusual building with domes and spires a half-mile away across a small estuary. “What is it?”

  “One of the sailors told me that’s the mosque in the Arab section. It’s a church of sorts.”

  The ship’s arrival in Port Said had motivated the heat-weary passengers to gather on deck to see this strange place. The breakwater and lighthouse were familiar sights, but not so familiar, or comforting, was the barren desert extending beyond the water’s edge as far as the eye could see.

  At least a dozen ships lay at anchor midstream in the crowded port, while the shoreline was cluttered with small vessels designed to carry goods and people between ship and shore.

  Jamie pointed out various sights. “And this here in front of us is where the English live.”

  “What, no Irish?” she laughed.

  “No. No Irish – least none I’ve heard of.”

  Several elegant, two-storey buildings with full-length windows lined the flat area immediately in front of them and stretched inland from the water’s edge. They could see people walking around in long white robes, carts drawn by donkeys laden with food and goods, and men from the army in khaki uniforms moving amongst the buildings.

  Their conversation came in fits and starts until something new attracted their attention. Otherwise they were content to let their eyes rove.

  “The buildings look a lot like those I saw in London. Did the British build them?”

  “I suppose so,” Jamie shrugged, suddenly restless and looking to and fro over his shoulders.

  This had been one of the few times Brigid had seen him without Maggie in tow and while she was enjoying their time together, he was obviously itching to get away.