Valentine began to whistle along with the music that flowed out from the kitchen through the basement windows. Immelda was singing another melancholy air – a tale of love and loss and heartbreak. Her voice keened like a mourner at a funeral. A muffled sob escaped from Rosie’s throat. Valentine stopped whistling.
‘Who’s there?’ he called. ‘Come out where I can see you.’
Rosie stayed very still. Perhaps he’d think the sound came from an animal. But Valentine walked directly towards her. ‘Come out, please.’
Reluctantly, she gathered up her skirts and stood up. He struck a match and came closer.
‘Rosie?’ he breathed in recognition. ‘Rosie, what on earth are you doing out here?’
Rosie turned away. She could not let him see the anguished state of her. ‘I’m just out for some fresh air,’ she said. ‘Sure the heat of the kitchen would smother a pig.’
She tried to sound casual, but the words were like jagged glass in her throat and she could not stop herself from trembling.
Valentine reached for her arm and drew her out into the open. ‘What’s wrong, Rosie?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘I just needed air, that’s all.’
‘Walk with me.’It was a command.
‘You know I can’t be seen with you, Valentine. Mr Burke already warned me. I’ll be sacked.’
Valentine ignored her. ‘Walk with me,’ he said again.
She let him lead her behind the house, across the back lawns, and through the gate that led into the garden. She stumbled in the blackness and his arm tightened around her waist. Their feet crunched on the gravel pathway. She knew every inch of this garden, even in the darkness. And so did Valentine.
‘Let’s sit down,’ he said, helping her to a stone bench. ‘No one can see us here.’
He was right. They were on the opposite side of the house from where the kitchen was located, with the stables and courtyard between them. They could no longer hear the music. The garden was wrapped in silence. Valentine took Rosie’s hand in his and they sat together, neither of them speaking.
Rosie relaxed and leaned against his shoulder, letting her earlier tension drain from her body. She felt neither happiness nor joy, just simple relief.
Valentine lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘I’m sorry, Rosie,’ he said at last.
‘What for?’
‘For not having sought you out sooner. For pretending to myself that you were better off without my company.’ He paused. ‘For convincing myself that I no longer loved you.’
He turned away from her and took a long pull on his cigarette. Rosie laid her face against his back. She could hear his heart pounding. Or was it her own? She waited. Had she heard him clearly? Was he saying he loved her? Eventually he turned back to her.
‘Oh, but I do love you, Roisin Dove. And I hate myself for not having the courage to act on it. I yearn to bundle you up in my arms and race away with you to a place where no one knows us, and no one cares about our stations in life.’
Rosie’s heart soared. Yes, he was telling her he loved her. How long had she waited to hear those words? Joy and anticipation flooded through her. He was asking her to run away with him. She was suddenly giddy. Of course, she would go with him – how could he even doubt it?
She sat up and beamed at him. ‘Oh, Valentine, I loved you from the first day I met you. I will follow you anywhere. Don’t you know that?’
He seemed to hesitate. ‘But I have no money, no inheritance, and no prospects . . .’ he began.
She reached up and put her fingers on his lips. ‘Ssh,’ she whispered, ‘I don’t care about any of that. I just want to be with you.’
He sighed. She could not see his face in the darkness, but she sensed something was wrong.
‘I know, Rosie,’ he said at last. ‘But the truth is while some men are able to ignore the constraints and duties of their stations, I have let them shackle me.’ He took a deep breath. ‘That’s why I have decided to go to America after all. I’ve dreamed that if I could make my fortune there I could send for you and we would be free to live our own lives. But it would mean you would have to wait for me, and I will not ask you to do that. You are young and beautiful and have your whole life ahead of you. You must not let it pass you by while you wait for me.’
‘Stop it, Valentine. Of course I will wait for you.’
Valentine bowed his head. ‘You don’t understand, Rosie. These dreams of mine may not be realistic, no matter how much I wish they could be. The reality is that I am not suited to business. I have no head for it and, as Papa is keen to remind me, I lack the backbone to stick with a challenge.’
Rosie sighed. How could he believe such things about himself? ‘Valentine, all you need is to find your path – the thing that will make your heart sing. Don’t listen to your papa. I have faith in you.’
Valentine ground out his cigarette under his foot. ‘The problem is, Rosie, that I no longer have faith in myself.’
They sat in silence. The air was cold and still. No bird was yet awake, but a film of pale light crept over the black silhouette of Mount Nephin in the distance, signalling that dawn was approaching. A few minutes earlier Rosie had been afloat with happiness. Now Valentine was trying to snatch that happiness away from her. He’d told her he loved her and now he was pushing her away.
Suddenly they were embracing, kissing each other fiercely on the lips, their breaths coming in short spasms. Rosie locked her arms around his neck and pulled him closer as if by sheer force she could keep him with her forever. He did not fight her. Instead, his kisses grew more passionate and he clutched her so tightly that she could hardly breathe. She pressed her body hard into his as if trying to meld them into one. They stayed that way for a long time, and then with a groan he pushed her away from him. Although she could not see it, she groped for his face and felt his wet tears.
‘Don’t go,’she cried.
‘Goodbye, Roisin Dove.’
He kissed her hands as she stroked his face then took her wrists and pushed her away more forcefully than before. Without another word he stood up and strode away without looking back.
Rosie whispered after him in the darkness, ‘I would have waited for you, Valentine.’
But she knew he had not heard her.
She did not go to her room that night. Instead she went back to the Killeen Cottage. Her ma blessed herself when she opened the door and saw her daughter standing there in the cold and dark.
‘Mother of God, what’s wrong? Is it bad news?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘No, Ma. Will you just let me in? I’m foundered with the cold.’
Rosie sat down. Her da snored in the settle bed beside the fire, and the boys were asleep in the back room. Ma set the teapot on the bank of turf to heat it up, then poured the tea into a mug, added milk and sugar and handed it to her daughter.
‘Did you get sacked? Ah, Rosie, I often worried one of these days you’d let your temper get the better of you.’
‘No, nothing like that, Ma.’
Rosie sipped the tea. How could she explain to Ma what had happened when she could hardly explain it to herself? How could she put into words what Valentine’s betrayal had meant to her? Yes, it was a betrayal, even if he may not have seen it that way. He had betrayed her dreams. He had destroyed the hope that had kept her going all these months, down on her knees, humiliated.
‘I’m racked with tiredness, Ma. Can we talk about it later? I just need to sleep.’
Rosie studied Ma’s face. She had not realized how much she had aged in the past months. Deep lines carved her weather-beaten cheeks, and her eyes had lost their sheen. A wave of sorrow washed over her. She was about to break Ma’s heart just as Bridie had done. But how could she help it? She had to go. She could never set foot near Ennismore again. And neither could she stay at the cottage. There were too many memories. Her spirit would die here.
PART THREE
DUBLIN
1912–1914
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br /> CHAPTER 10
It was dusk when Rosie climbed down off the train at Dublin’s Westland Row Station on 2 January 1912. She was stiff from the long journey squeezed tight against the window by a country family who had boarded at Mullingar and spread themselves and their belongings out on the wooden seat as if she was invisible. She set her bag down on the platform, stretched her back and shook her shoulders.
‘Wouldn’t do that, miss,’ shouted a porter, looking down at the bag, ‘or it will be the last you’ll see of it.’
Startled, Rosie picked up her bag and started walking. Crowds rushed past her – mothers with babies in shawls, rough men, some of them unsteady on their feet, and young girls her own age in cheap, gaudy clothes. She tried not to stare. That would give her away as the innocent country girl she was. She had heard enough from Sadie and the other staff about how the Dubliners would steal the eyes out of your head if they got a chance. She clutched her bag closer to her body and walked on, her head held high.
Out on the street, rivers of humanity assaulted her. Everyone was in a hurry, pushing by her as if she was standing still, bumping into her without apology. She was dressed conservatively in a long woollen skirt, and a high-necked blouse under a tweed jacket with her hair drawn back into a bun under a small, brown hat. She could have passed for a teacher or a shop clerk, or maybe a lady’s maid. The last thing she had wanted was to draw attention to herself but even now she was aware of occasional glances from men approaching from the opposite direction. She looked down at the scrap of paper in her hand on which she had written Bridie’s address. She had copied it down before she left the Killeen cottage, creeping out into the darkness before anyone awoke. She had left a note for Ma on the table, explaining that she was taking a few days off to visit Bridie in Dublin. She knew such a brief explanation would hurt Ma and worry her, but what else could she have said? She could not bear even to tell herself the truth of why she must escape.
She paused from time to time to ask directions – deliberately selecting someone who looked kind, or at least harmless, and pressed on. Streetlights began to glow as the day drew in, casting ominous shadows in dark corners and alleyways. She left the main thoroughfare of Sackville Street, walked on to Montgomery Street and made her way through a warren of narrow lanes.
She became more apprehensive as the crowds grew scarcer and the light dimmer. At last she found Foley Court. She took in a deep breath. Whatever she had expected to see, this was not it. Four-storey tenement buildings lined either side of the short street, huddled together like weary soldiers at the end of a battle. Some were black-stained from fires, others grey and crumbling, all looked in danger of collapse.
Three small boys raced past her, chasing an emaciated dog. One of them pulled at her skirt as he went by and said something she didn’t understand. She walked on, treading gingerly around the litter on the pavement, and stopped at number six, a soot-covered building just like the rest. A group of women, some old, some young, sat on the front steps passing around a bottle of gin.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, her voice shaking as they stared up at her with curious, hard eyes, ‘I’m looking for Bridie Delaney.’
No one answered her.
‘She’s my sister,’ Rosie tried again. ‘She’s married to Mr Michael Delaney.’
One of the women laughed, exposing ragged teeth. ‘D’you hear that, girls? Mr Michael Delaney, if you please.’ She peered up at Rosie. ‘There’s no such gentleman lives here. Now if it’s Micko Delaney you’re after, you can find him on the fourth floor – if he’s not still in the public house.’
‘And Bridie . . . ?’
They shrugged and passed the bottle again, moving aside so that Rosie could climb the steps between them. Tentatively, she pushed open the front door and crept into the darkened hallway. The stench assaulted her first – urine and faeces, stale vomit and porter, bitter odours of boiling cabbage. Then the sounds teemed around her as she climbed the stairs – arguing, cursing, singing, crying, thudding and scraping. She tried not to breathe nor to look right or left as she ascended. At last she reached the fourth floor.
She raised her hand in the dimness and knocked on the nearest door. It slid open at her touch. She stood looking into the interior, paralysed with horror and disgust. A figure that looked like an old woman knelt over a pile of rags in the middle of the floor, soothing an infant who lay there. The rest of the room was bare except for a rickety dresser, a single chair, some wooden boxes and a rumpled mattress beneath a grimy window.
‘Excuse me,’ she murmured as she backed away, intending to try the next door.
But as the woman raised her head at the noise, Rosie was horrified to see it was Bridie. She was stick-thin and sallow, her red-rimmed eyes bulging in her gaunt face. She rose to her feet, came closer and peered at Rosie, who stood rooted to the spot unable to utter a word.
‘What are you after wanting?’ she rasped. ‘Well stare away and go back to Ennismore and tell them about the luxury I’m enjoying in Dublin, you nosy bitch you.’
Bridie turned away and went back to tend the infant. Rosie ventured farther into the room and set her bag down on the floor beside her. She gazed around, looking for a place to sit, but the only chair was covered in dirty clothes.
‘I never thought I’d see Rosie Killeen at a loss for words. There’s a first time for everything, so.’
Rosie fought back tears. ‘Ah, Bridie,’ she began, ‘what happened? How . . . ?’ Again words failed her.
Bridie soothed the infant and pulled the rags up over it. She got to her feet and walked across the room away from Rosie, and leaned against the dresser. ‘Best you go back where you came from. You have no business here.’
‘Neither do you.’
Bridie shrugged. ‘I belong here rightly. With me own kind.’
‘Living in this filth? Among these people? How can you say that?’
‘It’s not Ennismore but at least I’m up off me knees.’ Bridie uttered a bitter laugh.
Rosie’s heart sank. ‘What happened at all, Bridie? Where’s your husband? In the name of God, sure I thought he had a good job at the bakery, and you too. Sadie said—’
‘Aye, Sadie knows all, doesn’t she?’
Rosie walked over to Bridie. She put a hand on her arm but Bridie pulled away. ‘Get away out of this.’
Rosie saw she was fighting back tears. She tried hard to control her own. ‘You’re my sister, Bridie. I’ll not leave you like this.’
A noise in the doorway made Rosie swing around. A short, heavy-set young man stumbled into the room. He might have been handsome once, Rosie thought, but the florid complexion, purple veins and slack mouth had changed all that. Rosie recognized the signs of devastation brought on by drink. She had seen plenty of it around the village where she grew up, and in some of the guests who came to Ennismore from time to time. ‘The curse of the drink,’ she heard her da’s words echo in her head.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ said Micko. ‘Another do-gooder?’
‘She’s not the Lady’s League, Micko. She’s my sister.’
He leered at Rosie and drew close enough to her that she could smell his putrid breath. ‘So this one got all the looks then? She’d do well down on Sackville Street. Earn a pretty penny off the soldiers, I’d say.’ He turned to Bridie. ‘Not like you, darlin’. Sure nobody would look twice at you.’
Rosie wanted to lash out but stopped when she saw the glint of fear in Bridie’s eyes. Micko had the look of a thug.
‘I’ve left home for good,’ she said, addressing her words to Bridie. ‘I was hoping I could stay with you until I got settled.’ She paused and looked around. ‘But I can see now that would be difficult.’
Micko burst out laughing. ‘Difficult!’ he said, imitating Rosie. ‘D’you hear that, Bridie? She sees that it would be difficult to stay here. Did you ever hear such shite in your life?’
He shuffled over to the old dresser and rummaged in a drawer, withdrawing a fistful o
f coins.
‘You can’t take that,’ said Bridie. ‘I have it put by for the rent. We owe more than three months and—’
‘I fucking earn the money, and I’ll spend it how I like.’ His face was red as he shoved the money in his pocket and moved towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it. A man couldn’t have any comfort in his own house with you two biddies.’
Rosie and Bridie watched him go.
‘You may as well sit down,’ said Bridie at length, taking the pile of clothes off the only chair and throwing them in a corner. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
They sat up talking well into the night, Bridie perched on a wooden box beside Rosie cradling her infant – a girl whom Bridie had named Kate after their mother. In all their years living under the same roof they had never talked so intensely or so honestly. All the jealousies and arguments of the past seemed to drop away like leaves from a tree. Bridie, laid bare now in front of her sister, left off all pretence of anger and resentment, and let emerge a truth purified by her shame. In response, Rosie dropped her mask of pride and admitted her fantasies about Valentine. So intent were they on each other that they ignored Micko’s stumbling return as he collapsed onto the thin mattress.
Rosie slept fitfully. Bridie had laid a thin blanket on the floor for her and a rolled-up rag to use as a pillow. Though her body was exhausted from the long journey to Dublin, and the shock of what she had found there, still her mind would not rest. Her thoughts were a swirl of Valentine bidding her goodbye in the garden at Ennismore, Ma weeping in the small cottage and Bridie, red-eyed, kneeling over her sick infant. Micko’s snores shuddered around the room, and ominous sounds of scurrying and scraping inside the walls made her cringe. When she could stand it no longer, she roused herself, dressed and slipped out into the cold, dark air.
The Girls of Ennismore Page 10
