Jack looked around to see a woman running towards him, then as she bent over him, he saw she had tears in her eyes.
“You’re not me mother. Where’s Alice? Maggie…” he turned and clutched at Hannah’s skirt. “Where’s me mother gone, Maggie?”
“I’m Maggie,” the woman said gently. “This is Hannah, yer daughter. We’ve come all the way from England to visit our homeland. I’m yer wife, Maggie. Alice is back in Neston where we’ve lived fer twenty years.”
“No, no,” cried Jack. “We’re off ter England tomorrow, we’re leavin’ on the mornin’ tide!”
“Yes, all right then, Jack, we’ll be going off ter England tomorrer. You just sit there with Maggie and enjoy the sunshine. Have a drink of tea from the bottle, it’ll cool yer a bit from the heat of the sun.”
She nodded to Hannah, when the girl looked in surprise at Maggie’s reaction, hoping that she realised she had a role to play.
Back in Ballina, Maggie sought out Frank and Bridget. Her heart was heavy as she explained to the couple what had happened earlier on. That Jack had recovered for a few minutes, but he had got Hannah mixed up in his thinking and didn’t know that Maggie was his wife.
“He’s gone back into his dream world again, I’ve put him to bed and left Hannah with him. He seems happy to have her near him. He keeps wanting to hold her hand.”
“Well, that’s something,” said Bridget gently. “An improvement surely on what he was like before.”
“I know and I must try to build on that by taking him back to England. I’ll get the best doctor, one that knows all about these sort of things. Did yer ask around about someone to take us to Sligo, Frank? I know I said we’d go on Saturday, but I feel useless sitting around.”
“I spoke to Billy McDermott. He said he was free to drive yer, but it’ll cost. Do yer want me to go and ask if he can take yer tomorrow? Now, you just sit and stop frettin’. Bridget, make her a cup of tea.”
“I could do with taking Jack to the tailors; he’s only got what he stands up in, thanks to those rotten fiends. Is there still one on the street next to the market? I can’t take him back home looking like a farm labourer; he’s always been most particular about the clothes he wears.”
Bridget said that the tailors had been there ever since she lived in Ballina, but Maggie would have to be sharpish as they usually closed at half past five. So, once again they set off down to the high street, Jack walking with Hannah, holding her hand.
Maggie couldn’t help but feel resentful as she walked along behind them. If her husband was going to remember anyone it should have been her. She felt guilty at even thinking it. Poor Jack, it wasn’t his fault that he’d been set upon, not his fault that his mind was confused. But still there was this little niggle. Why did he cling to Hannah and not her?
Jack stood in front of the cheval mirror that Mr. Tolan, the tailor had in his curtained off changing room. He was wearing a double breasted jacket in a light grey colour with a darker stripe running through the material, matching narrow trousers, a white winged collared shirt and a light blue cravat. What a handsome man, he thought, as he looked at his reflection. I could do with a haircut though, but all in all, not bad for nearly forty years! Forty years! Jack felt a cold shiver running through his body. He was only twenty, wasn’t he? About to marry Maggie and go to England with her?
“Maggie!” he shouted. “Maggie…” Mr. Tolan came running into the changing room and Maggie a step behind him.
But it wasn’t the Maggie he had pictured in the dark recesses of his mind, the girl with hair the colour of mahogany, creamy skin and oval green eyes. It was a woman nearly as old as his mother. A fashionably dressed woman though, brown hair pinned up into a neat curly bun, green eyes certainly but smudged underneath with the dark shadows of weariness. She stood at the side of him as he gazed into the mirror. Jack and Maggie, Maggie and Jack. The years came crashing back into his memory, but so did the pain of it all and it caught him unawares. Jack lurched against her, clutching at his head in agony with his two hands. Maggie and the tailor caught him as he fell.
He lay shivering under the bedclothes then sweat started pouring from every part of his body, then back to the shivering again. He was aware of someone leaning over, wiping down his forehead, his neck, his torso, with cooling water. Her hair was hanging down in wild tangles, anxiety showing in her dull green eyes.
“Oh God, it’s all my fault,” he heard her whisper brokenly. “Taking you out in all that sun, whatever was I thinking of?” She held his head as he sipped from a cup of water, then the room began to spin.
Frank had sent for the local doctor when Jack had been carried back to the hotel by the butcher and his assistant, whom Mr. Tolan had hurriedly called for help. The doctor had said it was a mild case of sunburn, made worse because he was still recovering from the blow to his head. Had the patient been wearing a hat, or had he overheated with too many clothes upon him?
Maggie had felt mortified at her lack of care for Jack, in that bright blazing sunlight down on the headland. She had been so absorbed in her memories; the present had mingled with the past. As children, they were as brown as berries from the hot summer sun. No one was ever taken ill with sunburn, none of the kids had ever worn a hat.
Those carefree days in Killala. Maggie wished she had them back.
The doctor had recommended that Jack should rest for at least two days before Maggie contemplated getting him up again. He would return on Monday and if the patient showed signs of improvement, then travel arrangements could be made. Maggie hoped that Billy McDermott would still be free to get them to Sligo. So did Frank; it was embarrassing having to seek out the driver on a daily basis, especially as Billy was now talking about a standing charge.
Still, what did the man do with himself anyway? Sat around The Font in the daytime and evenings were spent in Moran’s Bar.
Hannah sat beside her father’s bed the next morning. Maggie had taken herself off somewhere, muttering that she’d had a bad night and wanted some time on her own. She had been waspish with Hannah, saying she couldn’t be totally blamed for Jack’s condition. Hannah could have made sure that his hat was on, just the same as her. Hannah had been stung by the criticism and was sitting there with tears in her eyes. One dripped on to her father’s hand. He blinked and opened his eyelids. She found that he was watching her.
“Don’t cry, Hannah. I’ll be better soon, I’m sure of it. We’ll go home and I promise yer, we’ll never go on holiday again. It was thoughtless of me, dragging the pair of you across Ireland, but I thought it would do us all a power of good, seeing our roots, you seeing where your parents came from. I should have listened to the warnings in the paper that your mother read.”
He closed his eyes again, weakened by the effort of his speaking. It made Hannah cry even harder when she thought of his hurt to come.
Maggie was sitting on a wooden bench that some thoughtful person had placed by the riverside. It was cooler that morning, she thought, as she pulled her jacket closer. The wind certainly had a bit more of a chill. She watched a little family of ducks as they glided past, a brown-feathered mother and her four tiny chicks. From across the bridge she could hear the high-pitched voices of children, then saw a formation of blue clad convent girls, walking in twos, behind their teacher nun.
Maggie felt really weary. Two sleepless nights watching over Jack were beginning to take their toll. She had snapped at Hannah, because she felt the girl had deserved it. If she was so fond of her darling papa, then she should take some of the blame as well! Her thoughts were on the same lines as Hannah’s and she sighed when she thought of all the grief that her stepdaughter might cause them in the months to come. Maggie groaned to herself in frustration as she thought of Selwyn Lodge and her adopted home. There were contracts back in Neston that were waiting for her to sign!
Chapter 9
She was home! Oh the joy of it! Maggie ran to her bedroom window and looked across the estuary. There were
the Welsh hills draped in a mist as dusk began to fall and her garden, her wonderful garden, a riot of colour against the backdrop of the grassy fields.
“Will yer be wantin’ something to eat?” shouted up Olive, still agog and waiting to hear why the family had been away so long.
“Later,” Hannah answered for Maggie, leaning over the banister to answer the servant. “It’s a bath each that we’ll be wanting first; ask Cook to leave us something on a tray. Papa, you are looking very weary. Sit yourself down and rest for a while. Olive have you made up the beds?”
“They’ve been airing for the last few days, Miss Hannah. I put a warming pan in each day to take the chill off and I’ve taken the opportunity to clean the house from top to bottom while you’ve been away. What was it? What held you up? Fergus went to Llandudno twice to meet the ship. You said you’d be away around a week or so and it’s been nearly two!”
“Only two? I feel as if it was a lifetime. We had a few problems that’s all and my father has been ill.”
“Oh, shall I go and fetch the doctor then? I can be back in ten minutes if I run.”
“No, Mr. Haines will be fine after a few days’ rest. Now, weren’t you going to inform Cook about our meal?”
Maggie lay in her warm comforting bath. She had thrown her travelling clothes into a heap on the floor of her bedroom. She would have them cleaned then pass them onto charity. Never again would she put them on; they would remind her too much of their recent nightmare. A nightmare that had seemed to be never ending.
After she had sat by the river in Ballina, she had decided to walk across the bridge to St. Muredach’s Cathedral: chiefly to pay her respects at her parents’ grave and to try to arrange a stone memorial. She had been sure that her father had been lain to rest under a beech tree near the far wall of the graveyard, but after fruitless searching she had gone to look for Father Daley. He would know where her parents’ grave was and it would be good to tell him all that had happened since she had gone away. The housekeeper at the mansion house had told her that the priest had retired to his sister’s home in Westport and the new priest was away visiting his parishioners, and would she like to call back again in the evening? Feeling very frustrated by the housekeeper’s news, Maggie had gone to the stonemason’s on Nally Street where she was told that the proprietor was so busy that a headstone could not be made for at least two weeks. If she would like to call in on Monday, he would spare the time to discuss what she wanted it to say. Monday? Maggie had thought in annoyance. She had been hoping that the doctor would say that Jack was well enough for travelling on Monday, now she would have to make time to see the stonemason too. What was that saying? Man proposes and God disposes? Well, that saying was well and truly meant for her! Her mood worsened. Not uplifted by the few hours of solitude she had given herself, Maggie had gone back to the hotel to find that Billy McDermott wasn’t pleased that he had to wait until Monday for his passengers, and if he was to transport them after the doctor had made his call in the morning he’d be charging for a night in a Sligo guesthouse for himself as well!
And so it had gone on, Maggie thought, as she dried herself on a white fluffy towel, then wrapped herself in her pink satin peignoir. The only good thing had been Hannah’s report that her father had awoken earlier while Maggie had been away and had seemed as if he had got his wits back. The doctor had confirmed it to be so when he had visited as promised, but warned that Jack must take things easy. If the family were able to find the money, he recommended that Jack be seen by a specialist who knew about the workings of people’s heads.
It was a good job that they were a family with money, Maggie thought, as she glanced over at her reticule that she had placed on her dressing table stool. Her purse held only two silver shillings; all that was left from the twenty sovereigns it had held before. There had been the doctor’s bill, Jack’s new suit to pay for at Tolans, Frank and Bridget’s hospitality, the headstone that Maggie eventually managed to order, the enormous bill of Billy McDermott’s for transporting them to Sligo, overnight accommodation for them all, then at last three berths in the ship that would carry them to Liverpool. She hadn’t even paused to admire the skyline of the great city, when after a strong tailwind, the ship had tied up at the wharf thirty six hours later. Instead, she had bundled Jack and Hannah onto the next available ferryboat across the Mersey, frightened that some disaster would befall them if they didn’t go directly home. Spurning Hannah’s plea that they travelled by train from Woodside to Neston, Maggie hailed a surprised cabby, who was very pleased to earn on that one journey enough to spend the next day at home.
“Oh, I feel so weary, Maggie,” said Jack, as he wandered into their bedroom while Maggie was brushing her hair. “What say we have a lie down before supper? Hannah’s going to use the bathroom next and it would be good to hold yer in me arms for a while.”
“You could do with a bath too, Jack, yer only had bed baths while yer were poorly. I don’t want yer messing up Olive’s clean sheets. Why don’t we just sit and talk about the future? You’re not going to be able to carry on as you’ve done before.”
“Pooh, there’s nothing wrong with me, Maggie. Just a bang to me head that knocked me fer six for a while. I had worse done to me when I was on the circuits. Remember that fight I had when I worked fer Belsham? Two days I lay dead to the world, but Kitty May helped bring me round. Oh, sorry Maggie…”
Jack realised his mistake and blushed self-consciously.
“That reminds me. What is the matter with Hannah? The sea was as still as a mill pond when we were coming over from Sligo and still she was chucking up. I think she should be seeing a doctor, not me. Doesn’t seem right somehow, a young healthy girl like Hannah. Yer know, I wish we hadn’t gone back to Ireland, everything was going so well before. Sorry, Maggie, yer weren’t keen to go, but yer gave in to me persuadings. I promise that next time we go on holiday, you can choose.”
He put his arm around her, but Maggie shrugged him off and began to fiddle with the ties on her peignoir.
“There isn’t going to be a next time, Jack. How could anyone want to leave here? This place in itself is like being on holiday, especially compared with the life that we left behind. No, if yer want you can go off, but let me stay here where I feel safe and secure in me own little haven. At least there’s no nasty men lurking around wanting to attack me and mine.”
Hannah listened to the low murmurs coming from her parents’ bedroom as she walked along the landing to her own room. Poor Papa, she thought. It looked as if he had got over the trauma of the blow to his head by the Fenians, but soon he would be receiving a different kind of blow when she told him that she was expecting. She was convinced now that all her sickness hadn’t been due to the heaving of the ocean, but the reaction of her body to the child who grew inside. Her breasts were sore and there seemed to be a change in the colour of the circles that surrounded her nipples.
Oh God, what had she done? What could she do to save her Papa from the misery that he had in store? She was a bright girl, wasn’t she? Hadn’t her tutors told her so when she had attended her private school? Think of the problem as an outsider would – what advice would she have to give? Morally; she would say that the person needed a husband. Find one quickly, before the baby began to show. Financially; he would have to be someone who earned a living, who could give her the things that she had been used to in her life. Attraction; it couldn’t be someone who was ugly; she was going to have to spend the rest of her life with him and there was the coupling part of the marriage she would have to put up with as well.
Hannah sighed. It looked as if she was going to have to throw herself on the mercy of Eddie. Now that Jeremy was out of the picture, who else but Eddie would be happy to be the father of her child? But, for now, she would rest, and try to recover from that very long and arduous journey. What was it with these parents who looked into their past and thought their children would welcome their nostalgia? It was the future and where you were going
that was important, not where you had come from.
“So, yer telling me yer missed me and couldn’t wait to see me again?” Eddie said in wonder, unable to believe his ears when at last Hannah had managed to track him down.
She had hung around the tavern, feeling like a tart wanting business, stood looking into shop windows until the owners had begun to feel uncomfortable at her scrutiny, wandered around all the building sites trying to get a glimpse of him and even walked down to Lilac cottage, thinking he might be there.
“I did miss you, Eddie. I had time to think whilst I was on holiday and I realised that you are a very important person to me and I wanted you to know that. That’s why I’ve come to see you. To let you know how I feel.”
“Well, all I can say is that I’m very cheered to see yer standing there looking pretty, especially as it’s me you’ve come to see.”
“What have you been doing while I’ve been away? Last time we met you looked as if you were working. I’m sorry I was in such a hurry but as I said, I was going to Chester to a function, so I didn’t really have the time to speak. Michael went off to India with his unit you know, so I had to go to the leaving do.”
“Ah yes, I did hear you were hankering after that Jeremy Adshead. What is it Hannah? Now he’s gone, feeling lonely so thought you’d seek out the second best?”
Hannah had the grace to look a little sheepish, but she quickly gathered herself together to assure Eddie that his jibe wasn’t true.
“Oh, Eddie, how could you think that? You’ve never been second best. I had to attach myself to the Adshead family because that was what my parents wanted, especially as Michael and Jeremy were such good friends. But while I was on holiday I said to myself; just because my parents don’t like Eddie doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with him. I mean, good heavens, I saw where my parents came from; a mean little hovel from all accounts.”
“So does this mean you and I are going to start walking out together? Because if it does all me dreams will have come true.”
Dreams Can Come True Page 12
