Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars

by Jean Grainger

  Rory held out his hand and she placed hers in it. ‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Doyle, and if you can have any kind of positive influence on my unruly and unladylike sister here, I’m eternally grateful to you. Now then ladies, shall we take a walk along the pier and watch the big ships coming and going from dear old England?’

  ‘Don’t start, Rory, we’re having a nice day!’ Eileen warned.

  ‘I am starting nothing, Eileen. If a man cannot remark to his sister and her best friend his feelings at being subjugated and humiliated by a foreign oppressor who seeks to dissolve every shred of dignity and self-determination a man possesses, then who can he say it to? Maybe Miss Doyle agrees with me, Eileen? Did you ever think of that?’

  Eileen rolled her eyes at Mary.

  ‘Well, Miss Doyle? What say you? Should we be good little colonists as Mr Redmond is suggesting and beg and scrape all our lives to our English betters, or should we stand up, stand strong, unite and get rid of them for once and for all?’ Though his tone was jokey, Mary sensed a passion behind the words.

  She was glad she had taken to reading newspapers in her little room at night after Mr Grant had finished and discarded them. She was familiar with the opinions of John Redmond and the Home Rule agenda of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Mr Redmond seemed to think that getting a parliament of sorts in Dublin, which would still be answerable to England, would be enough, but clearly Rory didn’t agree. Mary found herself wanting to agree with him.

  ‘Well, I do know that Mr Redmond says he will never support votes for women under any circumstances, so I don’t think he and I are ever going to be the best of friends.’ Mary felt quite cheeky mentioning such a topic, but the mistress was very passionate on the subject, And the more Mary read about the women’s suffrage movement, even if most of the press coverage was negative, the more she warmed to the idea. Why should men rule simply because they were men? She would never have had the courage to voice such opinions aloud, but Rory seemed to agree, and she realised she wanted him to know she wasn’t ignorant of current affairs.

  ‘Ah an agitator! Wonderful. You are quite right not to trust him, Mary my dear. He’d have us kowtowing to their king forever if he could. No, the Volunteers now, they have the right idea. Do whatever it takes and finally get Ireland free, its men and its women. An Irish Republic, for once and for all.’

  ‘Ah Rory, give over, will you? And don’t let anyone hear you going on with all that Volunteer stuff. It’s only going to land you in trouble. You know it and I know it. And ’tis I’ll have the job of writing to Mammy and Daddy and telling them that you’re in jail, or worse.’

  ‘Better try and die to be free than to live in slavery, Eileen. Mary agrees with me, don’t you Mary?’

  ‘She thinks you are full of wind the same as I do. Now are we going for a walk or not?’

  Rory offered each girl an arm and together the threesome walked along the pier, Rory continuing to argue the case for independence. Mary enjoyed listening to him. He was so passionate and what he said made such sense. Despite Eileen’s disapproval, Mary knew she was proud of her funny, handsome brother. As they walked along the pier, Rory pointed out various landmarks to them and saluted several walkers. He seemed to know everyone.

  Up ahead a large crowd was gathered. Initially, Mary thought it was just people waiting for the boat to England, but as they drew nearer they could hear singing. The group of people, nuns among them, led by a priest, were singing Faith of Our Fathers lustily while a group of men were trying to shepherd large groups of small children, dressed in rags, onto the boat. The singers were forcing them back onto the quayside.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Eileen asked Rory. When he replied, all trace of the earlier joviality had disappeared.

  ‘The locked out workers are trying to send their children to England, to be looked after by sympathetic families over there, but the Church is against them going to Protestant homes. They’d rather they starved to death as Catholics. They’ve been down there all the week stopping the men getting the children on the boat. They’d sicken you, so they would, the Church for all its money won’t lift a finger to help the poor people living in the tenements, and the place rampant with disease and TB and the whole lot. But when the families let their babies go, when they’ve no other choice, the Church won’t let them. They think anyone who joins the union is a communist, and so they are doing everything they can to punish those that are locked out.’

  Mary could sense Rory’s anger at the situation, but she was shocked to hear him speak of the Church like that. She’d been brought up to bow to the rules of the Church over everything else. She never met anyone who felt otherwise.

  ‘We’d better turn around,’ Eileen suggested. As they turned, they saw several members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police approaching the crowd. They were armed with batons, and soon the entire crowd was reduced to a brawl. Children cried with terror in the midst of the fracas and were being pushed dangerously close to the open quayside. Rory ran into the crowd and pulled two little girls back from the edge. Eileen and Mary followed him, and between them they were pulling the smallest children out first. Mary’s new hat was knocked off and trampled underfoot, but she was running away with a baby under each arm and two or three more holding onto her skirt. She sat them on a low wall away from the riot, giving instructions to the oldest one, a boy around seven or eight, that he was to make sure no one moved. The babies she put into the arms of two little girls with orders to not let them go. She dashed back into the heaving mass of bodies again and extracted more children while the men who were leading them to the ship were being subjected to violent attack by the police and the singers. Rory and Eileen had seen where she had put the others and were bringing more little ones there. Several police vehicles had arrived, and policemen were throwing agitators into the vans with no concern for their safety. In the middle of it all, a priest, in full vestments, was praying loudly for the defence of the Catholic faith against the dual evils of Protestantism and communism.

  Rory shouted to Eileen and Mary to stay with the children and he would go back into the thinning crowds and try to get more out. As he ran off, Mary saw a little girl holding onto a rope who had been pushed off the open quayside by the surging crowds. She was screaming but no-one could hear her. Mary rushed forward and managed to squeeze past the many one-to-one fights that the riot now amounted to. She knelt down on the filthy ground and grabbed the little girl’s arm. Eventually she hauled her to safely. Holding the child close to her, she tried to get back through the crowd when she spotted a policeman about to hit Rory with a baton. She ran over and grabbed the policeman’s raised arm. He swung around in outrage only to find his assailant was a small young woman with a child in her arms.

  ‘Right you!’ he yelled and dragged Mary and the child to the van where they were roughly thrown in with the others. Moments later Rory was thrown in too. Before they closed the doors, Mary told the little girl to run to Eileen who would take care of her. The policeman guarding the van allowed the girl out and Mary was relieved to see her run into Eileen’s arms. Rory managed to make a bit of space on the floor of the van and pulled Mary to sit beside him. The crush was unbearable as at least twelve people were shoved into the tiny dark space. Rory held her hand as the vehicle slowly made its way up the quay.

  Chapter 11

  ‘Doyle. Mary Doyle.’ A guard’s voice called out from the corridor outside in the early morning. Mary leapt up from her place on the floor where she’d spent the night sleeping awkwardly. Elbowing her way from the back of the overcrowded cell, she tried to get over to the thick wooden door amid grunts of protest from her fellow cellmates. The smell of urine from the bucket in the corner combined with cheap perfume and unwashed bodies was nauseating.

  ‘I’m Mary Doyle,’ she managed to call through the tiny spy hole in the heavy door.

  ‘Yez’ll havta do better dan tha,’ luv. Dat fella’s deaf as a post.’ A cheaply dr
essed woman with a strong Dublin accent advised her with a cackle that revealed several missing teeth.

  ‘Here! Mister Curley! She’s in here!’ the woman roared deafeningly.

  ‘Alright alright. Jaysis, Margot, you’ve a voice like a foghorn, did anyone ever tell ya tha’?’ the warder was checking his ring of keys for the correct one. ‘Now just Mary Doyle righ’? The magistrate is only dealin’ with breaking the peace this morning. The rest of youse brassers will havta wait yer turn.’

  ‘Dat’s not wha’ you said last nigh’!’ Margot crowed, much to the delight of her fellow inmates who screamed with raucous laughter.

  Clearly, a night in the cells was a common feature of their lives. Mary couldn’t wait to get out. She’d learned more about what men and women get up to in those long hours last night than she ever needed to know. The bawdy, graphic descriptions of the various wants and needs of the women’s customers would never leave her. It was a much more worldly wise Mary emerged after a night with the working girls of Dublin city. She pushed past them to get out the door and meekly followed the huge prison guard down the dark, dank corridors.

  Her dress was ruined and the coat Mrs Grant had given her was torn beyond repair. Her hair hung over her face and she was absolutely filthy. There was no way she could appear in public looking like this.

  ‘E… excuse me, sir,’ she stammered shyly. ‘Do I have to go in front of the magistrate now?’

  The prison officer laughed and Mary saw kindness in his eyes. ‘Well, young lady, I dunno who ya are, but ya have some important friends who are making this go away for you. A Mrs Grant explained to the Magistrate that ya were only trying to help the chizzelers tha’ got caught up in the carry on down at the docks. You’re being collected now, but mind you don’t get yourself involved in anything like this again. He might not be feeling so kind the next time, y’hear me?’

  Nodding with relief, Mary followed the officer out into the public area of the jail where Mrs Kearns was waiting.

  ‘God in heaven, child! Look at the cut of you!’ Her words were said in concern and she went forward and grasped Mary’s elbow. ‘Thank you, sir, I’ll see nothing like this ever happens again.’

  Jimmy was outside with the Grants’ carriage and Mrs Kearns bundled Mary inside. All the way home Mrs Kearns said nothing. Eventually Mary spoke.

  ‘I suppose they are letting me go. I’ll just get my few things and...’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see what’s to be done. Lucky for you Mrs Grant is on a committee with the magistrate’s wife, and so when Eileen came to tell us what happened yesterday, the mistress was able to use her influence to get you out of it.’

  Mary remained quiet for the rest of the journey. How could she have ruined the best thing that ever happened to her? Getting arrested by the police! Mrs Grant was a respectable woman. She couldn’t have people who were in trouble with the law in her service. She wondered how Rory was? They were separated once they got to the barracks. Thank God Eileen got away and was able to get help. Maybe she could go to England? Get the boat from Kingstown. Eileen said there was loads of work over there on account of them having so many more big houses. She often said she would have gone herself for the adventure if she wasn’t going to be so far from the family. Mary had no family so that wasn’t going to be a problem. Mrs Grant, or maybe Mrs Kearns would write her a bit of a reference. Mrs Kearns was kind and she might give her that to make her chances of getting a position a bit easier. Well, it was more than she deserved but...

  Her reverie was interrupted by the sudden stop of the carriage as Jimmy drew them level with the back door.

  ‘Let’s get you cleaned up a bit before you see the mistress,’ said Mrs Kearns with a sigh.

  Mary ran upstairs and quickly washed her face and hands and brushed her hair. She put on her maid’s uniform and tied her hair neatly under her cap. She’d have a proper wash later on, but for now she didn’t want to keep the mistress waiting.

  Quaking with fear, she left he little room. Tentatively she knocked on the drawing room door.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘Ma’am.’ Mary’s voice was barely audible, her eyes downcast.

  ‘Ah, Mary. You’re back! Thank God for that. You poor girl, what an ordeal it must have been for you.’ Mrs Grant’s tone was full of concern.

  ‘Mrs. Grant, Ma’am, I’m so sorry. I am so ashamed of myself. After all you’ve done for me...’ Mary began.

  ‘Nonsense child. What you did was very brave. Mrs Carmody’s girl, Eileen is it? She came and told me everything. This situation with the locked out workers families is simply intolerable. That those women and men agreed to send their little ones away to a foreign county because they cannot afford to feed them is difficult enough, but for the priests to stand at the quayside, with their religious militia stopping these already heartbroken families, is nothing short of outrageous. I know that you and your friends were not involved directly, but the fact that you risked your own personal safety to protect those innocent children… well, I am so proud of you. The employers of this city, my own husband included, should be ashamed of themselves for having created this situation in the first place.’

  Mary had no idea what to say. It was an incredible thing that Mrs Grant wasn’t angry, but to have her so supportive was totally unexpected.

  ‘I know people think that someone of my class should support the employers, but let me assure you, I am not unique in my views and that many more than I feel this way. We as employers have a moral responsibility to those in our employ, and under the current system that responsibility is too often being thoroughly shirked. People are entitled to decent work, isn’t that what Mr Larkin says?’

  Mary was used to hearing her employer quoting Jim Larkin, the bane of the middle classes lives, as he regularly spoke and blamed them for the deplorable conditions endured by the poor of the city.

  ‘I suppose it is, Ma’am, but I just saw those little ones in the middle of all that fighting and I knew they were going to get hurt if someone didn’t take them out of it. Rory, that’s Eileen, Mrs Carmody’s girl’s brother, ran in and we just followed.’ Mary didn’t want Mrs Grant to think she was routinely getting involved in street brawls, whatever the cause.

  ‘Yes, I believe his employers, The Royal Marine Hotel, have seen to it that he was released without charge also. Some guests witnessed his actions and recommended to the manager there that they intervene. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt, my dear.’

  Relief flooded through Mary as she realised she was not to be dismissed and that Rory was safe.

  ‘Ma’am, about the beautiful coat and hat you lent me. I’m afraid they’re ruined. I can pay you something for them now, and perhaps you could withhold my pay until ’tis paid off. I’m sure the coat was very expensive, but if you’ll allow me to pay, that way I’ll work very hard until...’

  Mrs. Grant waved her hand. ‘Not at all, as I said it never suited me. It is a pity, though, as it was perfectly lovely on you. There won’t be any need to pay it back. It was a birthday gift, remember? Please, don’t think of it again. Now, Mr Grant will be home shortly, and I think it would be best if he remained ignorant of the happenings of the past day and night, don’t you? So if you would run along and help Mrs Kearns now, in case he notices anything untoward. But as soon as you are able, have a bath and get to bed. You must be exhausted. And Mary, well done.’

  Mary backed out of the little drawing room and almost skipped downstairs to the kitchen. Mrs Kearns looked up from her gravy and instructed Mary to lay the joint to rest on the slab on the sideboard. The next hour was spent running up and downstairs with bowls and platters. The Grants had company for dinner that night. As she stood in the corner of the room having served coffee and petit fours, she overheard the men’s conversation.

  Mr. Grant and his guest William Martin Murphy were discussing the difficulties of continuing business as usual without a workforce.

  ‘Well, ther
e is always the option of bringing in workers from England. I’m considering it because I’ll never get these contracts filled otherwise. Dublin Castle won’t wait forever. They can get the uniforms made in England just as easily, and then where would I be?’ Mary could hear the frustration in Mr Grant’s voice.

  ‘If that troublemaker Larkin had kept away, we wouldn’t be facing this disaster now. They are blaming us, you know, blaming us because their children are starving and disease is rife. These people had jobs, decent jobs with fair wages, and it wasn’t good enough for Larkin and his ilk. He’s making us out to be blood sucking tyrants, when what we are is businessmen trying to keep our enterprises afloat in what are very difficult economic conditions. He’s never run a business, yet he has the audacity to tell me how to run mine.’ Mr Murphy was incensed.

  Mrs. Grant interjected, ‘There were riots today at Kingstown, the priests refusing to allow the locked out workers’ children on the boat to England. There were terrible scenes it seems.’

  Mr. Grant looked at her with distain. ‘Yes, well, what they do or don’t do with their children is their own business and we should have no part in it. In any case, like most things it was probably over exaggerated and typically sensationalised by women. Jeremy Johnson, a captain in Dublin Castle, is a friend of mine from the club, and he said the police were being set upon even by the little brats they were trying to get on the boat. They breed like rats in those tenements, and they rear the children with no respect for law and order.’ Mrs Grant caught Mary’s eye and gave her the faintest of smiles.

  A short while later, having seen the Murphys out, Mary cleared the remaining glasses and ashtrays from the small sitting room where the last embers of a fire were glowing. She was dead on her feet having had virtually no sleep the night before. Mr Grant had retired for the night, but the mistress was reading a newspaper on the Queen Anne chair beside the hearth. As Mary bade the mistress goodnight, Mrs Grant called her back, indicating that she should take a seat. Nervously, she placed the full tray on the side table and perched on the matching fireside chair facing her employer. She felt awkward sitting in the presence of the mistress. Perhaps she had rethought her earlier generosity.