Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys

by Keith Ross Leckie

  Raffy

  The clouds moved in that night and brought periodic showers with spears of lightning in between that flashed through the tightly closed windows of Johannah’s bedroom, made cozy by a blazing fire that Raffy had set and lit. She had enthusiastically taken over Johannah’s care again, as if she had never left, as if she had never grown into a young woman, and Johannah let Raffy treat her and fuss over her as before. They had dinner alone, which Raffy cooked and served, for the fortunes of the estate had taken a downturn—this her mother had mentioned on her last visit—and Raffy was the only waitstaff left.

  “Raffy…I went out to the tenant cottages today to visit. They’re gone! The buildings have been burned. What happened? Where are the O’Tooles and the Donnellys?”

  Raffy’s expression revealed this to be dangerous ground, and she responded carefully. “It’s your father you must be asking about that. Not my business.” And she would say no more.

  Johannah’s father was working late at the Cavendish offices and warehouse and was still not home as she prepared for bed. This was her third night back and she had spent hardly any time in his company. He was the last of her family. Though he was not an easy man, she wanted to think better of him, even to imagine that his behaviour that night so many years ago had been an aberration. Or perhaps even a misunderstanding.

  Johannah stood in a bathing pan wearing a very loose cotton nightgown with her arms raised. Raffy used a soapy cloth to quickly, roughly clean her arms, back and neck, reaching under the gown so Johannah wouldn’t get a chill. It had been their nightly ritual years before, resumed as if from only yesterday. She was too old for it now, she thought at first. In six years, her body had changed from a skinny adolescent’s to that of a full woman. And recently in London, she had proudly let a very few selected others touch that new body. Now, strangely with Raffy, for a moment she felt shy. But Raffy began scrubbing and the years dissolved and it all felt very natural again.

  Johannah noticed on the wall in front of her an unfaded square of wallpaper where a painting had hung. It had been a landscape by the Englishman Turner of a sunny pasture with highland cattle grazing. As a child she would stare at it, become lost deep beyond the precise brush strokes that created the illusion of that gentle world. There was another unfaded square near the bed, another favourite painting of hers, a young girl of title with kittens and a white bow in her hair by a portrait artist who specialized in the children of the European aristocracy. Where had these paintings gone? She had noticed other furnishings missing and asked Raffy, but Raffy was firm that these were questions she must ask her father.

  Now, Johannah told Raffy about her day and the trouble at the soup line. “I just don’t understand how things could have changed so quickly. To watch those people scramble after that food.”

  “An empty belly’ll do that, miss,” Raffy offered, frowning. “It’s the second year the potatoes have been diseased. Do you not hear of these things in London?”

  “No, not really.”

  Raffy put down the washcloth, picked up the small brush and began to clean Johannah’s teeth as if she were six years old, holding a bowl under her chin. Johannah spoke through a mouthful of tooth powder suds.

  “Can’t they grow different crops?” But she was thinking that after what she’d seen that day, there could be no simple answers.

  “Spit, my love.”

  She did so and Raffy put the bowl away. Then the heavy woman’s joints cracked as she knelt on the floor.

  “I can do my feet, Raffy. Please, there’s no need.”

  “Let’s get the whole job done. Clean as a whistle.”

  She began with the washcloth on her feet, Johannah steadying herself with a hand on the bureau as Raffy scrubbed between her lifted toes.

  “Father seems so tired…”

  “It’s good you’ve come home, my love. Maybe it’ll take the edge off him. You liked it then, England? Mightn’t you go back?”

  Johannah considered this question for a moment. What would she do now? She had not realized how much the death of her mother meant to her. She had completed almost six years at Devoncroft and beyond the real subjects of history, geography, elocution and mathematics there were courses on household management, with a staff below and a husband above, on the social graces of dinner parties, on gift giving and, in certain cases, matchmaking. After the excitingly raw and fresh politics of the feminists Mott and Stanton, she realized she could not go back to Devoncroft. The school had nothing to offer her. But did she see herself continuing in the life of an abolitionist or women’s rights advocate? Maybe.

  Raffy was waiting for an answer. “What did you think of London, my love? I’ve never been. What did you learn?”

  “Well, one thing I learned was you don’t have to simply put up with the way things are. There are people out there who fight back against slavery or injustice or for women’s rights. I believe soon, Raffy, women could have the vote!”

  “Good heavens! Anarchy!” They both laughed.

  “I believe Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Stanton will eventually get their way.”

  “So will you go back?”

  Johannah hesitated. “Well, London is the centre of the world,” she said with a bit of sarcasm, “or so they have convinced themselves…civilized and proper. The museums and art galleries…music…everything very ‘à la mode.’ So, exciting and all, I guess, except”—Raffy paused in her ablutions to listen—“the gentlemen. They’re all so boring. Just boys, really. Full of themselves and their fathers’ money and who they know and their nasty little circles of friends and enemies. Not one of the boys I met took me seriously. Not one I could be serious about.”

  “You always had such ‘lofty’ standards, miss.”

  Johannah looked at her, catching her own sarcasm, and laughed again as Raffy picked up a towel and dried her feet, one then the other.

  “Yes…these standards of mine. They’ve left me stranded here, Raffy, on the shoals of spinsterhood. Aged, loveless…”

  “How will you ever find the strength to carry on, my love?”

  Johannah looked at her as they warmed to each other even more after so long apart. She took Raffy’s big face in her hands, leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. Raffy smiled up at her and her joints creaked again as she rose to her feet. Johannah stepped out and away from the wash pan onto the cold bare floor and she wondered, hadn’t there been a Persian rug here, blue, with men hunting tigers? Intent on further explaining her heart to Raffy, she dismissed the question of the absent carpet and stepped onto a towel.

  “Do you know what I want? I want to have some adventures, Raffy. London is all very well but it is so staid, so conservative so…circumscribed and safe. I want to travel to places far away and live by my wits. I want to meet interesting people I would never normally meet. I want to see the orient like Captain Edward Belcher, or explore Africa by safari like René Caillié and find the source of the Nile, or sail with Crozier to discover Antarctica. Life is passing me by, Raffy. Do you understand?”

  “I do, my love. Sadly, it sounds like Borrisokane is not your future.”

  Later, sitting on a settee before a full mirror in an elegantly carved cherrywood frame, Johannah appraised her own young face as Raffy combed out her thick, dark hair. Outside the window, lightning continued to flash and the long, distant rumble thundered a few seconds behind. Johannah held out her palm.

  “Tell me my fortune, Raffy. Not just the old stuff.”

  Raffy smiled, hesitated, put down the brush and took her hand, holding it to the candlelight, studying the lines with practised skill. As she ran a finger down Johannah’s life line, Raffy’s face clouded as outside the distant thunder cracked and grumbled again.

  “What? What did you see?”

  “Nothing…” Raffy let go of Johannah’s hand. She picked up the brush and continued brushing Johannah’s hair. />
  “Really, what did you see?”

  “Nothing, miss. I…I don’t have the knack tonight.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Before she could insist, there was a knock at the door and a moment later, her father entered. He gave her as warm a smile as he could muster.

  “Johannah. I was awful worried about you this afternoon. You were fierce brave today and I was proud of you, my dear. I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you.”

  He turned to Raffy. “Good night, Raffy,” he said, dismissing her.

  She hesitated, looking from him to Johannah. Magee stood watching until finally, under his gaze, Raffy picked up some laundry and left the room.

  “There are some things…I should tell you.” He was moving about the room without looking at her. “The estate has been suffering, financially. I have tried hard, but the world is in depression. And I have made some investments that proved ill-advised.”

  Her father raised his chin to show he was not in defeat, then removed a flask from his pocket, turned away from her to look out the window and took a long drink.

  “I was cheated. We owe a lot of money. I had to sell some things.”

  “So I see.”

  “It’s worse. Many of the things belonged to Cavendish.”

  “Oh.” This was unexpected. She had always assumed her father was a good and honest manager.

  “And I will not be able to send you back to Devoncroft.”

  “This is not a misfortune,” she informed him.

  “Good. But still, beyond the cruel loss of your mother, I am financially in trouble.”

  “Well, I’m sure it will all work out. Cavendish knows how good a manager you’ve been for him.”

  “Yes. It’ll all work out. I’m glad you see it so. You have my optimistic spirit.”

  Her father sat down on the settee close beside Johannah. Unconsciously, her hand went to touch the fine silver locket that was hanging from her neck. Her father raised his hand and took hers and the medallion in his own fingers.

  “It keeps me safe,” she told him.

  “Yes. I gave her that…”

  “…on the day I was born. She gave it to me the first time she left me at Devoncroft.”

  Her father looked into her eyes and tenderly traced the soft side of her face with the back of his fingers. “Now that you are a woman, you have her face. Extraordinary. So beautiful.”

  She looked into his sunken features, smelled the whiskey on his breath and sat back from him.

  “She said you never loved her.”

  “That was a lie. I loved her in my own way.”

  “With the back of your hand?”

  Her father froze for a moment. “She was not an easy woman. But you’re not like her. You’re like me. I have been so very lonely, Johannah.”

  Her father turned his hand over and ran his finger along her mouth, tracing her lips, and the icy memory of that confusing and fearful moment in the barn six years before rose up fully within her. She gave an involuntary shudder and pulled away from him again.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  She stood and took a few steps toward the window to look out and calm herself. She felt ill.

  “What is wrong, Johannah?”

  She would not let her father’s behaviour distract her from the questions she needed to ask. She turned back to him.

  “Tell me the truth. I took a ride today out to the tenant houses. The Ryans…the O’Tooles…the Donnellys. What happened to them? Where is Lucy?”

  George Magee’s face hardened, his emotions as tight and controlled as they were at his wife’s graveside.

  “We had to make changes. The markets forced us to produce meat for the British armies. It was Cavendish’s decision. We had to convert the grain fields to pasture. There was no call for labourers. The tenants moved on.”

  “The houses are burned out.”

  “Yes. It’s sad. But there was no need for them. We didn’t want squatters occupying them. Taxes have to be paid on any structure with a roof.”

  “Where did they all go?”

  “They moved on into town or up to Limerick or into Dublin.”

  “But I’ve heard nothing from Lucy. I was going to send her money to visit me in London.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” he said, looking perplexed. “They will have found work somewhere. Darling, the only constant in this world is change and we must change with it. We are caught between the peasants and the wealthy classes. It’s our responsibility to lead. It’s not easy.”

  After a moment, he came toward her and took her arm, staring into her eyes, drawing her closer. “So like her,” he murmured, gazing steadily at her. “But with spirit.”

  Johannah tried to pull away, but he held her firmly.

  “Let go of me.”

  She turned her face from her father’s burning eyes, but he continued to hold her close to him with a strength that exceeded hers. She could feel the heat of his body through the light cotton of her gown.

  “I need you.”

  As her father kissed her neck, she stood frozen and tried to calm the panic from her voice.

  “I’m very tired. I need some sleep…Daddy, please!”

  At this endearment, the fire suddenly left his gaze and he stepped back and released her arm. His expression became troubled and confused.

  “Yes. Yes, you’ve had a long day.”

  “I have. So good night, Da. Go now.”

  “Yes. Good night, sweetheart.”

  He turned, then, and lurched unsteadily toward the door. He pushed it open wide and continued on toward his own bedroom.

  Johannah stepped out into the hall and was about to pull the door closed to lock it when she noticed someone in the shadows behind. Raffy was standing there, quiet and still. She looked at Johannah without a word. In her hand she held a small pistol, Johannah’s mother’s own little weapon. She was breathing hard. When Magee was gone down the hall, Raffy uncocked the hammers and folded the two triggers back into place. She then wrapped the little pistol in her shawl and, without a word, made her way back across the hall to her own room. Johannah went back into hers and sat on the bed, thinking about what had just happened, knowing she could not live at Ballymore House anymore.

  Oyster Nan

  Johannah placed a bouquet of wild roses on the fresh dirt of her mother’s grave in St. Patrick’s crowded little cemetery. The headstone read “Mary Elizabeth Ryan Magee.” She had taken the silver locket from around her neck and held it in her hand, tears misting her vision as she gazed at the tiny daguerreotype of her beautiful mother. Already, shoots of grass and clover were coming up through the rich earth. She longed for her mother’s company. She imagined she could hear her mother’s voice in the gentle wind, the words almost discernible, but not quite, and this only made her feel more alone.

  Johannah entered the darkened, empty church, knelt at a side altar, struck a match that briefly illuminated her spot in the sanctuary and lit a candle for her mother. She carefully placed it among the few others and said a little prayer to the angels for solace and for guidance. After a few moments, she felt no answer. She was not a patient young woman. She rose, genuflected to the altar and went out for a good ride on Cuchulain.

  * * *

  Across the wide green pasture, scattering the damn cows again, she drove Cuchulain at a full, furious gallop, trying to escape her grief, riding off the fear and disgust she felt toward her father’s attentions. She felt truly an orphan. What could she now do with her life?

  On the hard-packed bridle path under a leafy canopy beside the mumbling stream, Cuchulain made his careful way. Johannah’s emotions were calmed beside the flowing water. This was a place she would come to very often as a child, most times alone, to dream, to read. It was a place of c
ontemplation, sanctuary and solitude. What would she now tell that young girl, if she could? What would that girl now tell her?

  And then she remembered the day fishing with Jim Donnelly and the encounter with the warden, and she smiled at how Jim had made her laugh. She remembered the place, a pool in a bend in the river just ahead. And then, as if God were conniving to re-create His little play, she swore she could hear whistling, the clear notes of someone up ahead. It was Jim Donnelly’s tune and as she drew closer on the winding path, the whistler began to sing in a clear, warm tenor that was much deeper than she remembered, but still, there was no question.

  “As Oyster Nan stood by her tub,

  to show her inclination…”

  Johannah rode quietly into the clearing, and there he was, standing near the stream, his back to her, nonchalantly rigging up his fishing gear. She had the distinct feeling she was expected.

  “she gave her noblest parts a scrub,

  and sighed for want of copulaaaaaaaaation…”

  Johannah blushed at the lyrics she’d never heard before, but only a little. Jim glanced over his shoulder as she approached. Johannah was delighted. “I’ll be damned,” she said out loud. “Jim Donnelly.”

  Neither could hide their pleasure at seeing the other. And in the interest of restaging the scene from almost six years before, Johannah mustered a forceful authority. “You! Peasant! These are estate lands.”

  She rode a little closer to him. “What are you doing there?” she continued in her affected upper-class accent. Jim joined the game, holding up his fishing tackle. “You mean with this fishing gear, my lady? I’m picking wildflowers.”

  “You’re poaching! I’ll call the game wardens. They’ll arrest you!”

  She drew a little closer to him.

  “Why don’t you just toss me a rope, my lady, and I’ll hang meself right here?”

  “You don’t realize the trouble you’re in, sir.”