The Girls of Ennismore

by Patricia Falvey

  The room was empty and dark. At first she wondered what had happened to Bridie, but then remembered that her sister had taken Kate to the hospital with yet another one of the child’s frequent fevers. Wearily, she lit a candle, took off her jacket and then took a bucket down to the tap in the yard to fetch water. The water was lukewarm and rusty, but she was used to it by now. She had planned to wash her hair, but by the time she returned to the top floor she was too exhausted. She set the bucket down and went behind a bamboo screen to undress. She had bought the screen back when she worked at the bakery. She needed some privacy in such cramped quarters. She had bought a thin mattress and pillow, as well, which she had placed on the floor in a corner behind the screen. It occurred to her sometimes that she lived her life these days constrained in very small spaces – the cubbyhole at the League offices and this cramped floor space behind the screen.

  She undressed and lay down on the mattress in her thin shift. Soon the mattress was damp with the sweat of her body and her shift was soaked through. She sighed. She was beginning to drift off to sleep when the door opened. Bridie must be back with the child, she thought, but she was too weary to get up and see. Loud coughing and cursing signalled that it was not Bridie but Micko who had come home. Rosie stiffened and held herself very still. The cursing grew louder when Micko realized Bridie was not there. Rosie listened as he sat down heavily on the chair and gurgled as he greedily swallowed a beer. She waited for the thump of his body as he hit the mattress where he and Bridie slept. But he did not move. She prayed he would not realize she was there.

  ‘Rosie, Rosie, ring around the Rosie.’

  She started at his simpering voice. She must have fallen asleep. Now it took her some seconds to take in what was happening. Micko knelt on the floor leaning over her. His putrid breath made nausea rise in her throat. She lay still in the darkness, hoping he would think she was asleep.

  ‘That hooer, Bridie, is not in her bed,’ he went on, ‘and no man should have to sleep in a cold bed.’ He leaned over closer to her. ‘But she left her lovely sister here for me, didn’t she?’

  Panic gripped Rosie. Night after night she had lain listening to Micko grunting and rutting as he assaulted her sister after a night of drinking. He had made many lewd remarks to Rosie but thank God he had never touched her. Bridie had always been there and he had taken his needs out on her. But Bridie was not here tonight.

  ‘Please God,’ she whispered, ‘please God don’t let him touch me.’

  But even as she prayed she knew exactly what Micko intended to do, and no amount of prayer was going to stop him. Within seconds he lay on top of her, tearing at her shift with his rough hands, his breath coming in thick gasps. He thrust his wet tongue into her mouth so deep she thought she would vomit. With one hand he shoved her shift up above her hips and with the other began unbuttoning his trousers. A bright red flame filled Rosie’s eyes and an anger she had never known before infused her. All senses left her and pure instinct took over. She began to kick her legs, her right knee aiming at his crotch. With balled fists she pummelled his head and back while he grasped her, his ragged nails tearing into her shoulders and down her back. She seized his jaw and pushed it back as far as she could so that he was forced to remove his tongue from her mouth. Then she screamed as loud as she could, all the while still kicking him. Her knee eventually found its target and he leaned sideways, cursing her.

  With all the strength she could muster, she shifted herself from under him and pushed him to one side. Already off balance and inebriated, he rolled onto the floor. Before he could move, Rosie scrambled up and grabbed her dress and jacket that were hanging on the bamboo screen. Then she pushed the screen down on top of him. Half-crying, half-whimpering, she found her shoes and holding them and her clothes in her hands ran for the door and down the stairs. From the room above she heard the clatter of the water bucket as Micko Delaney crashed into it and the thud on the floor as he fell.

  She was outside before she stopped long enough to struggle into her clothes and shoes. Then she took off up Foley Court and on to Montgomery Street. There were few people about that time of night, but Rosie didn’t care who saw her. She ran on without thought of where she was going. When she finally stopped, bent over and exhausted, she was at the door of the house on Moore Street where Cathal O’Malley lived.

  It took him some minutes to respond to her persistent pounding. By the time he opened the door he found her collapsed on his doorstep.

  ‘Mother of God, what happened to you?’

  Rosie looked up at him. She could not speak. She hoped he would not make her explain. She allowed him to lift her to her feet and lead her down a hallway and into a dimly lit room. He sat her down in a tall armchair beside a flickering fire.

  ‘Stay there,’ he said, his voice gentle, as he disappeared into another room.

  Rosie shrank into herself, hardly aware of where she was. She noticed a half-drunk glass of whiskey on a table beside the armchair, and an open book, but very little of it registered. He returned with a glass of cool water, and a glass of brandy, which he set down on the table. He went out again and came back with a small box which contained bandages and ointments and other items. She stared at him, her eyes wide.

  ‘Drink the brandy,’ he said, ‘’twill do you good. Now let’s have a look.’

  Rosie whimpered and shrank away from him. ‘’Tis all right, Roisin Dubh,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll not hurt you. Let me see you.’

  She let him remove her jacket but as he began to unbutton the front of her dress a vague panic engulfed her. Was it going to happen again? She cried out.

  ‘Ah, hush now, love. You’ll be all right. But you’re bleeding through your dress. I’m only trying to see your wounds.’

  She beat the panic down. Bleeding? She hadn’t felt anything. But there again, she was numb. She watched as he slipped her dress down over her shoulders. The material had stuck to her back with sweat and blood, and he eased it gently away from her skin.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he breathed. ‘Who’s after doing this to you?’

  She shook her head and remained silent.

  ‘Ah ’tis all right. You don’t have to speak of it now.’

  He reached into the box and took out cotton wool and a bottle of antiseptic and gently applied it to her cuts. There were several on her back and shoulders and upper arms. Her hands were scraped as well, as were her lower legs. She kept still while he cleaned and applied salve to her wounds. His touch was gentle. She was vaguely aware of the firelight that turned his brown hair to copper as he bent over her. He was in his shirtsleeves. She realized she had never seen him without his long, heavy overcoat.

  The brandy began to do its work. Drowsily, she nodded and closed her eyes. She thought of how her da used to tend to her scraped knees when she was a child, joking with her so she wouldn’t cry when he applied the antiseptic or iodine. Then he would kiss her on the forehead and tell her everything was better. She felt her da’s kiss. It was so real she opened her eyes. But the only one kneeling in front of her was Cathal O’Malley.

  CHAPTER 25

  While the New Year of 1915 had promised optimism for Rosie, for Victoria it promised only spiritless dejection. Her earlier hope that nursing wounded soldiers at Dr Cullen’s private hospital would bring her satisfaction was fading. There was no shortage of military officers needing her attention, but Victoria could not stamp out the thought that she could be doing more. Lady Marianne had shown Rosie’s articles to her, filled with pride that her protégée was making such progress. And while Victoria felt a pinch of envy she also was horrified at the desperation that Rosie’s articles were describing.

  Perhaps Rosie’s pieces were the catalyst that finally crystallized Victoria’s resolve. A week earlier she had been reassigned back to the clinic after the head nurse at Dr Cullen’s private hospital had complained that Victoria’s youth and beauty were an unwanted distraction for the recovering officers. Now she was back to caring
for genteel ladies with delicate health problems. Her vague yearnings to do something more soon became howling cries she could no longer ignore. So, one summer morning, instead of going to the clinic as usual, she made her way to the South Dublin Union Hospital and offered her services as a nursing volunteer.

  The hospital was part of a group of buildings on James Street, which included a workhouse and infirmary. The South Dublin Union was officially established in 1839, but the work-house and foundling hospital dated back over one hundred years before that. By the time Victoria went to work there, the hospital had become a vital resource for Dublin’s poor, like Bridie and her child, who could obtain care free of charge. Besides nurses and women of various religious orders, the hospital was staffed by many volunteer doctors, some of them well-renowned.

  The contrast between Dr Cullen’s private clinic and the Union was stark. The grim, granite-faced building Victoria entered each day through a wide archway was a far cry from the discreet Georgian townhouse that housed the clinic. The hospital was grimy, noisy, odorous, and overrun with patients. For the first time since coming to Dublin Victoria began to feel an inexplicable pleasure each morning. Her nursing skills were put to rigorous test straight away. No more the genteel complaints of gentlewomen and their daughters, her patients now presented with real sickness – much of it arising from poor nutrition, filthy living conditions and hopelessness – and she was making a difference in their lives. Within her first week she had treated cases of boils, scurvy and rodent bites, as well as whooping coughs, fevers and respiratory ailments. She was shocked at the number of women, young and old, who arrived with bruises and broken ribs and limbs – all of them claiming to have ‘fallen’.

  The days at the Union were long and demanding. She was grateful for the exhaustion that caused her to fall into a deep sleep each night. The bliss of sleep allowed her to blot out all thoughts of Brendan and the sadness that he was lost to her. During the day at the hospital she thought about Rosie often – she half expected to see her appear in the crowded waiting room with Bridie or the baby. The more she became aware of the price of poverty in the city, the more she began to understand why Rosie wrote the kinds of articles that she did.

  One spring morning in May, the Union was as bustling as ever. By ten o’clock the vast waiting room overflowed with Dublin’s poor. There seemed to be no end to the stream of humanity that struggled through the doors each day in search of care and compassion. She was securing a bandage on the arm of a young boy when she felt someone watching her. She swung around. A dark-haired man peered through the window. Something about the set of his head was familiar. She dropped the boy’s arm abruptly.

  ‘Hey, missus,’ he protested, ‘will you watch what you’re after doing.’

  But Victoria did not hear him. A buzzing filled her ears, hot sweat collected at the back of her neck, and her palms were wet and clammy. Shock seized her as she stared at the man. No, it could not be him. She must be imagining it. She stood rooted to the spot as he opened the door and came into the room.

  ‘Well, well, Miss Bell. You’ve come down a peg or two, I see.’

  Brendan Lynch’s tone was surly.

  A rush of emotions flooded through her – embarrassment at the images that pervaded her dreams, even though she knew he could not possibly know of them; delight that he was here, standing in front of her; fear that he would reject her because of how her family had treated him. Her heart thumped in her chest and she struggled to speak.

  ‘Brendan?’ she managed, though her mouth and lips were parched. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He shrugged and looked down at a blood-soaked handkerchief wrapped around his fingers. ‘Looking for a nurse like everybody else. I was a bit careless with a knife.’

  Victoria instinctively reached for his wounded hand but he drew it back. ‘I’ll wait me turn.’

  Although his tone was sullen, Victoria thought she saw his old passion burning in his eyes, but she dismissed it as wishful thinking.

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened, Brendan.’ The words burst out of her. ‘I never meant for you to lose your job.’

  She studied his face for any hint of hostility. Surely he must resent her, hate her even, for how he had been treated at Ennismore. He had been sent away without any chance to explain. How that humiliation must have fed into his hatred of the gentry. Did that resentment now include her? She waited for his judgement but it did not come. Instead he shrugged.

  ‘’Tis myself acted the fool,’ he said. ‘I should have known better than ever to trust the gentry.’

  Victoria winced. Had the bond of trust between them been broken? She fought back tears.

  ‘Ah, sure ’twas the boot in the arse I needed to get away from there,’ he went on. ‘Anyway, the company is better in Dublin. There’s plenty of lads here like meself. They’re a far cry from the likes of the brown-nosing oul’ weasels beyond at Ennismore. And I’ve joined the Volunteers.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve found your place, Brendan.’ She smiled, trying to lighten the mood. ‘No one ever thought you were cut out to be a footman.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right there. But ’twould have made no difference soon enough. When this war’s over there’ll be no footmen left in this country or in England. Young fellers will have been out seeing the world, fighting alongside their supposed superiors, and they’ll not slip back into the old ways of service so easily. I’d say the gentry way of life will be all but dead. And good riddance to it.’

  They stared at each other for a long time. Brendan looked as if he were weighing something up in his mind. She allowed herself to hope that he would let go of his anger. As she waited, his eyes grew softer and his tone gentler.

  ‘I’ll be away back before I lose my place in the queue,’ he said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘’Twas good to see you, Victoria.’

  Relief rushed through her. He had used her first name. ‘It was good to see you too, Brendan,’ she whispered.

  With that he was gone. Victoria stood for a moment then looked down at the glum-faced boy who was waiting for her and busied herself with his bandage.

  ‘Ah, ’tis too tight, missus,’ he protested.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Later that night she lay in bed replaying Brendan’s visit over and over in her mind. The dream that she would one day see him again had come true, but it was worse than if he had never come at all. She feared that she had lost him now for a second time. She had wanted to call after him when he left – to ask him where he was staying, to suggest that they meet some time – but she had been paralysed by a mixture of desire and fear. Now she regretted that she had not had courage enough to tell him how she felt.

  She closed her eyes and recalled the last night she spent with him in the walled garden at Ennismore – his sad eyes as he had told her about his mother’s death, his slender fingers clutching hers as he spoke, the soft feel of his lips when they had kissed. There was no sign of that Brendan today. He was hidden far below the brash, defiant face he had shown her. The feelings the old Brendan had aroused in her were still there. Would they ever be given a chance to ripen? She buried her head in the pillow, craving sleep. But sleep remained a stranger to her that night and for many nights after.

  Ever since her success in placing Rosie at the Gaelic League, Lady Marianne Bellefleur had developed a robust interest in all things nationalist. As she had opined on many visits to Ennismore, the nationalist movement amongst Dublin’s Protestant Ascendancy was growing. This development appealed to Lady Marianne’s French sensibilities, given France’s own glorious revolution and, more importantly, to her desire to be on the cusp of all new and exciting activities indulged in by the most inventive and passionate members of her own class.

  She and her companion, Mr Shane Kearney, attended many League events such as charity fund-raisers, speeches, debates, and, of course, musical and cultural evenings. What she enjoyed most, however, was attending the Abbey Theatre. She was already well acquainted wit
h Lady Augusta Gregory, dramatist, and the poet, William Butler Yeats, co-founders of the Abbey, having visited Lady Gregory’s Coole Park estate in Galway a number of times. The Abbey had become a venue for nationalist dramas and was popular among League members.

  One evening at the end of May, Lady Marianne finally persuaded Victoria to accompany her and Mr Kearney to a performance of The Devil’s Disciple by George Bernard Shaw – a play about the American Revolution. At first, Victoria had refused, pleading fatigue, but Lady Marianne had been insistent.

  ‘You must get back out in society, Victoria. You are burying yourself in that hospital to the exclusion of everything else. I applaud you for the good work you are doing there, but you need some respite, my dear. You have been looking rather haggard of late. It’s most unattractive.’

  Victoria walked behind her aunt and Mr Kearney into the midst of a bustling crowd of theatre-goers. When they had taken their seats she looked around her. The Abbey struck her as more of a village hall than a formal theatre. People in the audience left their seats to chat with friends and milled about moving between the cheap seats in the pits and the grander stalls blithely ignoring the dividing rope between. The atmosphere was exciting and alive. She recognized many of the women who patronized Dr Cullen’s clinic. Geraldine Butler was there. As soon as Geraldine caught Victoria’s eye she rushed over to greet her.

  ‘Darling Victoria,’ she cried, ‘how wonderful to see you here.’ Geraldine nodded towards Lady Marianne and Mr Kearney. Then she turned back to Victoria. ‘I haven’t seen you since I accompanied Mama on her last visit to Dr Cullen’s clinic.’

  Before Victoria could answer, Lady Marianne piped up. ‘Victoria is no longer at the clinic, my dear. She is volunteering for the poor at the Union Hospital. Is she not marvellous, Geraldine?’

  Geraldine’s eyes widened. ‘Marvellous indeed. I am so happy to hear it. Although I have heard that it is an awful place.’

  Victoria tried to change the subject. She was annoyed with Lady Marianne for publicly announcing her new position – she had not even told her parents she had made the change. Mama, she knew, would be mortified if she found out and would come to Dublin immediately and insist that she return to Ennismore.