Being Mary Ro

by Ida Linehan Young

  She had to hurry. They needed a doctor. Mary circled away from the makeshift hiding place to an old slide path that hadn’t been used in years. It would take her to town in a more direct route than getting on the trail. She reached the nearly grown-over path a few hundred feet north of Alice’s Garden and started to run toward John’s Pond. Another shot rang out. It didn’t cross her mind that anyone might be looking for her or that Meg might have left the house—and Danol.

  9

  Peter and Brian were almost beside themselves, and Meg wasn’t faring much better. Mrs. Ange had put her foot down and insisted all three stay in the church. There were lots of volunteers, and Mrs. Ange said that they were too anxious to be of much use. Mr. Davis was trying his best to be strong, but the strain of the situation was wearing on him. Each time Mr. Vince fired a shot outside, he gulped as if swallowing a sob. Carla was trying to comfort him while keeping an eye on Brian, fearing he would get in an argument, or worse, with Peter. Their children were with her sister, and she would stay by Brian’s side until, and however, this terrible situation was resolved.

  Another gunshot—deafening and necessary. Mr. Vince would stay there all night if he had to—he wouldn’t leave his duty. Dr. Parker was attending to the ten remaining patients on the floor while Peter paced with Brian. Another shot, then another. And then the doors burst open and Mr. Vince hobbled in, shouting, “Mary Ro is running through the meadows, heading this way!”

  Brian and Peter both rushed out, meeting her on the steps. They helped her into the church, each holding an arm, and Mr. Vince started to ring the bell. Mary’s face and dress were covered with grass and mud, her hair was full of leaves, twigs, and dried hay, and her face was red as a beet. Peter thought she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

  Carla grabbed a glass of water from the cloakroom and handed it to Mary, who gulped and coughed as she tried to catch her breath. Spent from her run, she was grateful to have Peter and Brian support her.

  Folk poured into the church, returning from their search. “Give her room,” somebody shouted, and Mr. Davis waited expectantly in front of the fast-forming crowd.

  “My girls?” he questioned.

  Mary nodded, still gasping for breath. She reached out for his hand and held it before she spoke.

  “The girls are hidden in the woods.” She took another swallow of water before continuing, her breath and chest hitching from the exertion. “I found the sisters—badly beaten and tied up in the old stable on Alice’s Garden.”

  Mr. Davis turned red, sucked in a deep breath, and exhaled loudly. Mary squeezed his hand. “They’ll be fine.”

  People continued crowding the church to find out what was going on. The bell silenced as Mary continued.

  “I need men with barrows and blankets to go get them. They are tired and weak and can’t walk back to town. They could be cold by now, too.” She squeezed harder on Mr. Davis’s hand. “I’ll only tell Brian where they are, and you can follow him.”

  She looked at Brian, and he nodded. The anxious gathering listened attentively as she quickly told them why she had hidden the girls. Mr. Davis shuddered at the news. Carla brought a chair and sat him down next to Mary, who kept a tight hold on his hand.

  “Whoever did this could be here in the room now. They didn’t see his face, but he’ll have cuts on his hands from roughing up the girls. And a bite mark. Ethyl fought back.”

  Several strangers from the boats held up their hands for display to the townsfolk around them, while murmuring where they had been as proof they weren’t involved.

  Standing, she leaned into Brian and whispered directions to the hiding place. Brian hand-picked eight men for the job. Mr. Davis rose to go, and Peter volunteered.

  “They might need a doctor,” Peter said.

  Mary nodded. “That’s a good idea.” They left swiftly.

  Meg was upon her before she had a chance to finally catch her breath. She clutched Mary and hugged her so hard she almost knocked her just-recovered wind out of her.

  “Mary Ro, I thought you were gone. Don’t you ever frighten me like that!” Meg embraced her friend once again. Slowly and awkwardly, not familiar with this kind of attention, Mary lifted her arms and squeezed the girl. Strangely, it was comforting, so Mary hugged her tighter.

  When Meg released her, Mary addressed the concerned crowd. With Mr. Davis gone, she was able to give them more details, her tale punctuated by gasps of horror from her captive audience.

  “The girls could have been dead if I hadn’t stumbled upon them when I did,” she finished.

  Whispered questions ran rampant as the shock of what had happened set in. “Has anyone been missing for a long time today?” she asked. A round of head shakes told her nothing was out of the ordinary—beyond the already extraordinary circumstances facing the community.

  Carla shoved the chair toward Mary. “Sit, Mary Ro. You have had quite a bit of excitement today. You must be tired.”

  With adrenalin wearing off, Mary sat on the hard wooden chair. She was beyond tired. Somebody pushed a bowl of soup toward her, and Meg fetched a slice of bread from the supplies in the cloakroom. Suddenly ravenous, Mary realized she hadn’t eaten in what seemed like days.

  With the help of a few women, Dr. Parker readied a place on the floor in anticipation of the arrival of the two girls. Things settled down, and people waited patiently in shock and silence, staring—waiting for the doors to open once again.

  Finally, they were back. Brian was first, making a path through the crowd for the two girls to be carried in. Ethyl was barrowed in first, followed by Regina, who was holding her father’s hand.

  The barrows were fashioned with two hand-chopped sticks, ten feet long and no thicker in the round than Mary’s arm along the full length. Netting was attached in the middle of the wood for about six feet, which left both ends as handles. These particular barrows were used to bring hay from the meadows. Others were fashioned for fish, the middle having a wooden platform or an old barrel bottom between the sticks.

  Today, with the girls lying on the netting, two men carried each end to bear the weight and to ensure the Davises weren’t dropped or dragged.

  The makeshift stretchers were lowered where the doctor indicated. A few women swarmed around the girls and moved them onto the prepared bedding. Peter and Dr. Parker went to work.

  Everyone was horrified with how the girls looked, and they could tell that Mr. Davis was extremely upset, although he remained quiet. Carla took charge of him again. She got him tea while he waited for the doctors to finish their examination. Both girls needed stitches in their heads and on their arms. The place was silent. An anxious crowd watched and waited.

  Peter turned and motioned for Mary—Ethyl was asking for her. The crowd parted to let her through, and she knelt beside Ethyl, Peter helping her down.

  Ethyl reached for Mary and clasped both her hands. The girl was barely twenty, the older of the two sisters. She tried to smile at Mary, but her swollen lip was cut and dry.

  “Thank you, Mary Ro. Thank you for saving us,” she said, squeezing Mary’s hands tighter with all the strength she had left. She began to cry. “You’re a hero.”

  Mary blushed. “Hush now, Ethyl. I’m no hero. I only did what anyone here would have done.”

  “No, Mary Ro, you saved us. We would have died out there, and nobody would’ve found us for days. You’re so brave. I was so scared and so worried about Ginny, and I couldn’t help her. When I heard you enter the stable, I believed that man was back to finish us off. Then you spoke, and I thought an angel had come to save us, or worse, to take us. I was right. You’re an angel, Mary. You’re strong and knew how to keep us safe. I wouldn’t have known what to do, even if I had to get out of the ties. Thank you, Mary Ro.” She started to cry.

  “It was nothing. I was happy to do it,” Mary said, uneasy being the centre of the
attention with everyone staring at her.

  Peter helped her stand, his touch warm on her hand. His eyes lingered on her face. She blushed again, her whole body reacting to his presence. As she returned to her chair, people swarmed her, shaking her hand or hugging her—all repeating that she was a heroine.

  Although her clothing was torn and dirty and her body tired to the bone, Mary knew she had accomplished something big today and over the past several days. She had let go of the demons that haunted her with the death of so many at her house. She didn’t see herself as anything other than who and what she was—Mary Ro—a mere mortal who did everything she could to save others. Suddenly, her mind opened to the possibility that simply being Mary Ro wasn’t so bad after all. She had a purpose.

  That thought fractured her whole vision of herself into a million pieces. She had risen above her circumstance, just by being who she was. Why had she not seen this before?

  Mary’s heart skipped a beat as she realized that she did what she did because she was who she was, and that revelation briefly exposed for examination all the inadequate, undermining self-reflection of the last number of months—maybe even years. She wasn’t a heroine, she didn’t want accolades, she was Mary Ro—plain and simple—and there was nothing wrong with that. Being Mary Ro was easy. It always had been. She just hadn’t seen it.

  She had felt sealed and unposted in the envelope of John’s Pond. Now, she knew it was as much about her attitude as it was about her geography, and she could change her attitude. Now she was undergoing an internal epiphany of sorts, elicited by the bizarre circumstances of the past few days. Nobody here blamed her. Everyone believed in her. She just needed to believe in herself.

  But she didn’t have time to reflect on her new-found core-awakening. She still had a job to finish. In all the hustle and bustle, she had almost forgotten about her house guest and how he was doing.

  She had to talk to Meg. If she left too early, before the Davis sisters were out of trouble, it would look suspicious and could endanger Danol. She would question Meg when the time was right.

  Finally, both doctors stood and Peter spoke. “The girls have been through a great deal, but they’ll be better in a few days with some rest and care.”

  Mr. Davis had flushed a deeper red as Peter was speaking. Now, suddenly, he deflated as if he had been punctured. It wasn’t often, if ever, anyone saw a man cry, and Mary could tell that Mr. Davis was close. It was almost as heartbreaking as seeing the injuries on the girls. Mr. Davis made his way to his daughters. A couple of young men had gone to Colinet as escorts for his wife, but until then, he was all they had.

  Mr. Davis turned to the crowd. “Whoever did this to my girls will answer to me!” His big bear-paw hands were clenched in fists as he raised his voice, and no one in the church doubted that the person who assaulted the sisters would indeed pay. Nobody wanted to be on the wrong side of him when he was angry. And he was angry. The crowd rallied around him, almost ready to lynch the perpetrator.

  With this distraction, Mary turned to Meg. “How is Danol?”

  “He was in the front room when I left. He seems to be doing a bit better,” she whispered. “Probably resting on the daybed now since all the commotion has been cleared up.”

  “I’m going to try to escape to the house and stay with him. I really do need a bath, too. Will you come with me?” Mary asked.

  “You won’t get rid of me, Mary Ro. But I’ll have to ask Dad before I can go because he’ll be worried about that man on the loose.”

  “Sure, you go on, and I’ll make my way up to the house and get the water ready. I’ll pull the tub into the front room so that I can have some privacy.”

  “All right, Mary Ro. See you shortly. Nobody would dare touch you in town in broad daylight. I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

  Meg sought out her parents, and Mary looked around to see if she could get out unnoticed. Her eyes locked on Peter, who was talking to Dr. Parker. He smiled, and she felt a shiver. She nodded, then slipped out through the cloakroom and the back door of the church. She was relieved to be away from the crowd.

  She longed to sink in the washtub and use her new soap to clean her hair. It would give her time to think about being Mary Ro and, if she admitted it, about Peter. Her dress and wool coat were filthy, and she could imagine her appearance to be a similar state. It was useless to pull her fingers through her hair. She would ask Meg for help. Strange, it was easier to ask for help!

  Outside, she took a deep breath of the salt sea air to calm her nerves. The day, bright and sunny, was still a little cool. Although it was getting up in June, there were small ice pans around the bay keeping the chill in the air.

  She was so self-absorbed as she walked by habit past the store, in the lane toward her house, that she failed to notice her observer.

  Peter watched Mary leave and tried to quickly finish up with the patients so he could speak to her. He was awed by her strength and courage in rescuing the Davis girls, and especially her humility with it all. Mary was something else. He hoped he would get the opportunity to be with her and find out first-hand what it would be like to be loved by this woman.

  He spotted the girl who had been with Mary and made his way through the crowd. She was having an animated conversation with a red-headed young man.

  “Pardon me. You are Meg?”

  The young man spoke up. “Why do you want to know that?”

  “I came to see if Meg was aware that Mary had left and if she was going to stay with her.”

  “Meg is going to stay with Mary. We were just talking about that,” he replied.

  “I’m leaving shortly,” said Meg. “I have to check with my parents first.”

  “Please don’t be too long. Whoever did this is still out there—or in here,” he said, his gaze scanning the room. “I would go myself, but I’m not sure she would like that. But if you need time, then I’ll go now.”

  “She wouldn’t be too pleased about you showing up. I see my father now and will check with him. I should be with her in no time,” Meg told him, waving and leaving to get her father’s attention.

  “I’ll watch for you, but let me know immediately if there’s a problem,” Peter replied.

  “I can walk her up to Mary Ro’s if her father doesn’t want her walking alone,” the young man said.

  “Why do you call her Mary Rose?” Peter asked.

  “Not Mary Rose. We call her Mary Ro, short for Rourke. With Mary John and Mary Will in the town, it was easier to call her Mary Ro. Her not being married and all.”

  “Oh, I see,” Peter said. “Mary Ro, that’s interesting. Thanks.”

  He walked away but kept an eye on Meg and put his mind at ease when he saw her go toward the door. Mary wouldn’t be alone.

  After checking on the girls once more, Peter left them in the care of Dr. Parker. He intended to go see Mrs. Ange and find out when the constables were expected. The old woman would have the latest news.

  With coat in hand, he went to the back door just as Mrs. Davis was coming in with her escorts. She started to cry as soon as she walked into the church. Then she ran to her husband and hugged him fiercely before she knelt with her daughters. Anguished cries resounded long after he had left the church.

  The storm door on the store was fastened in, signifying that Mrs. Ange was not there, so Peter went around the building and in through the front door of the house. He met Mr. Bolt at the foot of the stairs. The man had his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. Taking one out, he tipped his hat to Peter, saying, “Good day, sir!” as he went. He seemed in an awful hurry, almost knocking Peter over trying to get by.

  Peter raced up the stairs to his room. Mary Ro. He liked that—Mary Ro. His pants were covered in mud and dust, so he grabbed a clean pair from his small travelling trunk and quickly changed.

  When the girls had been located and put on t
he barrows, he and Brian, as well as two other men from the community, had gone back to the barn to see if they could get a clue as to who had done this. However, they found nothing.

  He was astounded at how far Mary had pulled the youngest girl without leaving any trace of where she’d gone. Although tall, Mary was a slender woman, and the more injured Davis girl would be nearly her height and weight. How Mary had managed totally amazed him. She had prevailed.

  But something was drawing him back from thoughts of Mary to his most recent encounter with Bolt. There was something odd about him. Then it hit him. When Bolt raised his hand to tip his hat, Peter glimpsed scratches and a bruise on his knuckles. Was his mind playing tricks on him because he disliked the man? Either way, he was going to be safe and check on Mary, then find out where Bolt had gone.

  Quickly throwing on his coat, Peter raced for the stairs, knowing Bolt was already ahead of him. Suddenly more scared than he remembered ever being, he cursed his stupidity for not noticing Bolt’s injuries earlier. As he left Mrs. Ange’s at a full run, he prayed that Mary would be safe.

  10

  Mary searched the house. Where had Danol gone? He couldn’t have gotten far in his condition. She called out his name several times, but her voice was met with silence. Had the person who assaulted the girls found Danol?

  Was it Danol who had done all this?

  She searched the flour barrel in the pantry. Her hands clasped the cool metal of the gun. She wiped away the flour and tapped the pistol against the wooden staves to be sure the muzzle was clean. Now that she had the gun, what was she going to do with it? She would take it with her; she could always hide it again when she got back.

  Mary stuffed the gun inside her shirt and into the waistband of her long skirt. It felt heavy and cold against her body. She adjusted her shirt so that it wasn’t noticeable, or so she hoped.