Letters From a Patchwork Quilt

by Clare Flynn

  Father O’Driscoll and Tom MacBride exerted a heavy price to preserve the reputation of Mary Ellen. All the way back to Bristol they harangued him. Jack could barely make sense of what they were saying. Their words flowed over him like a river in flood, a constant barrage that formed a background to his personal grief. His brain was in turmoil. What would happen to Eliza? How could he find her again? What would she do? He was stricken with a mixture of grief and guilt. It was all his fault. She had done nothing and now she was the hapless victim of his own stupidity. He was angry with the two men sitting opposite him, but he was more angry with himself.

  When Jack refused to answer their demands, the priest set about kicking him as he sat, cuffed and helpless. Jack was obdurate in his refusal to marry the woman. MacBride threatened him with the cooked-up charge of the theft of two paintings. Jack told him he didn’t care if they threw him in prison, but he would never agree to marry Mary Ellen. Then O’Driscoll played the trump card. Unless Jack agreed to marry Mary Ellen, Sister Callista would be dismissed from both her post as headmistress and cast out of the convent and the church.

  That was too much. He wanted to kill the smug, red-faced bully. Bringing Sister Callista into this was despicable. He protested. ‘Sister had nothing to do with this. Do what you like to me, but leave her alone. She is a good woman.’

  ‘Stop your lies. We know she gave you money. Money she had no right to be holding. She had sworn a vow of poverty and loyalty to the church.’

  They knew. Jack was desperate. ‘It wasn’t her fault. I made her do it.’

  ‘Don’t make things worse for yourself, Brennan. Marry the woman and Mr MacBride will forget about the paintings and Sister Callista can get on with teaching.’ The priest leaned over Jack, his arms pinning Jack’s shoulders back and his eyes narrowed.

  ‘You’re a smart enough lad. Wise up. Your lady friend has gone and you’ll not see her again, so you’d better make the best of what’s left for you. It’s that or prison and with a criminal record you’ll never teach again. It’s time to face the consequences of your lewd actions. We’re offering you a new beginning. Mr MacBride has very generously agreed to give you a decent start by paying your railway tickets, as well as giving you enough cash to tide you over for the first few months. Enough to get you started off with somewhere to live until your wages are paid. My cousin has arranged accommodation for you with a widow in the parish until you can find something more suitable for the long term.’

  As he said the words “long term”, Jack felt sick. It was a life sentence. He was yoked to Mary Ellen until one or other of them ended their days. Responsible for her bastard child. Forced to share his home and his life with her. He’d gladly have chosen the prison sentence – but they had made it clear it would be the ruination of the nun who had shown him nothing but kindness. He couldn’t even seek Sister Callista’s counsel as he was confined to the house - and as far as he knew she could also be confined to the convent. After the woman’s kindness, he could not allow further sanctions against her, so three days after he was dragged from the ship, he was married to Mary Ellen.

  The ceremony was rushed, with only the priest, along with MacBride and the priest’s housekeeper as witnesses. There was no nuptial breakfast, no fancy carriage and plumed horses, no fine clothes or invited guests. Mary Ellen’s initial joy that at last she was to be married was transformed to petulance when she found out she was to forego all the frills, fuss and finery she had dreamed of all her life.

  Jack couldn’t bear to speak to her. He walked into the church like a condemned man approaching the gallows. He made no eye contact with Mary Ellen or the priest. He looked around the familiar church as the sunlight streamed through the stained glass window and cast a kaleidoscope of colour over the bride’s face and the floor in front of them. He struggled to pray, to find the right words of supplication, to plead to God and the saints to release him, but the words refused to form in his head. He raised his eyes to the statue of the Virgin Mary in her niche to the side of the altar, but her eyes were downcast, as though she too were ashamed at what was taking place.

  The words of the marriage rite spoken by Father O’Driscoll were a mockery. Jack was consumed by anger and looked up in defiance at the priest. His look was met with a narrowing of the Irishman’s eyes and Jack swallowed, remembering the fate of Sister Callista was in his hands. He spoke the required vows in a barely audible mumble and when it was over he felt his life was over too.

  Over the three or four decades before Jack and Mary Ellen arrived in Middlesbrough, the town had undergone the most explosive growth of any in Britain, rising up from the empty salt marshes beside the mouth of the River Tees. The happy conjunction of deep water at the river mouth, the proximity of the coalfields and the extension of the Stockton to Darlington railway meant that what had been a tiny settlement rapidly burgeoned into a thriving port. When iron ore was discovered in the Cleveland Hills, Middlesbrough’s destiny was assured, as iron foundries with their blast furnaces and rolling mills sprung up on the banks of the river. The town was now responsible for one third of the iron ore output of Britain and had become an exemplar of England’s spectacular industrial progress in the nineteenth century.

  The newly married couple were oblivious to this economic miracle as the train trundled towards their destination. The journey from Bristol was passed almost entirely in silence. Jack stared out of the window, unseeing, as fields and woods sped by, his enchantment during his first railway trip from Derby and the excitement and anticipation of the journey to Liverpool with Eliza, replaced by misery. Mary Ellen was confused, muddled, angry. She sulked on the other side of the compartment, sighing loudly every few minutes, presumably in the hope of eliciting a response from Jack, but he just stared out of the window and ignored her.

  Jack meanwhile tortured himself over what might have happened to Eliza, constantly rewinding the events of the past days in his mind. If only they had stayed below decks, they might have escaped detection. If only they had got off the train at Crewe and stayed there for a few nights to let their trail go dead. If only he had told Mr MacBride what happened in that dark alleyway as soon as he got back to the house. If only he had not involved Eliza, but run away himself – perhaps returned to Derby until the dust had settled. But winding the clock back could not happen. Eliza was trapped on a ship, alone and without money, sailing away into a future without him. He was ashamed, wracked with guilt, filled with remorse. Powerless to do anything.

  When at last the ill-matched pair exited the station at Middlesbrough, it was a sunny summer’s day, yet as Jack took in the grimy, smoke-blackened streets with their crowded houses, he felt lower than he had ever been. How was it possible to be so happy one day and entering the slough of despond the next? He couldn’t help his mind returning to that last night with Eliza in Liverpool, to the hopes and dreams they had shared and to their mutual excitement at an unknown future in a new world.

  The lodging house that Father O’Driscoll had arranged for them, was in a tree-lined avenue with large houses, many of which appeared to be commercial lodgings. Mrs Grainger, the landlady, was a smiling, rotund lady, with dimples on either side of a generous mouth. She greeted them warmly at the door and, after raising an eyebrow when she saw Mary Ellen’s condition, showed them to their room on the second floor.

  Jack left Mary Ellen to unpack and followed his landlady downstairs to a room at the back of the house, which contained nothing but a large table and chairs, where he asked her the way to the school where he was due to teach.

  ‘It’s just five minutes away, Mr Brennan. When are you due to start teaching there?’

  ‘Tomorrow or the day after I understand. I was told to report to a Father Reilly.’

  She looked at him and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, with Mrs Brennan expecting a child, but the school had to close two days ago. There’s been an outbreak of cholera and five children are dead already so the governors and the town coun
cil have insisted on closure.’

  ‘When will it re-open?’ Jack felt his knees giving way and he sank down onto one of the wooden chairs.

  ‘Father Reilly will be able to tell you more than I will. If you get yourself over to the presbytery now you should catch him before he does the Novena.’

  With a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, Jack knocked on the door of the presbytery and was ushered by the housekeeper into an anteroom, lined with wooden upright chairs around all four walls. There was a large statue of the Virgin Mary standing guard in one corner of the room, which otherwise was completely bare.

  The parish priest kept him waiting for fifteen minutes, then rushed into the room, full of apologies. He led Jack into a drawing room, where he signalled him to take a seat on one of the threadbare but commodious chairs.

  ‘Mr Brennan, it’s a terrible thing that’s been happening to us here. Our Lord is certainly testing our strength and our faith. Five little children have been taken back to heaven and we’ve lost two young women, one a new mother, and an elderly man to this awful disease. We’ve had no alternative but to close the school down. We have been short of funds for a long time. The bishop is trying to keep us afloat, but times are hard and there are many drains on the church’s resources.’

  ‘When will it reopen?’

  ‘That I can’t tell you. It may be some time. The town council is being as difficult as it can be and is doing little to expedite matters. Indeed I suspect they are taking advantage of this unfortunate event to put more pressure on the Catholic community, as they’re mostly made up of Methodists and Quakers. While we Catholics are over-represented in the town’s population, we’re under-represented on the council. The post you were to fill has long been vacant and to be honest, even before the epidemic, we had come to the decision not to fill it but to consolidate the classes. I wrote to Father O’Driscoll and told him this but it seems my letter failed to reach him. I can see no possible way we can find a place for you, Mr Brennan, much as I would like to.’

  Jack slumped forward, hanging his head. ‘What’s to become of us? My wife is to have a child soon. Are there any other schools that might be in need of a teacher? Even non-Catholic ones?’

  ‘Do you have the qualifications?’

  Jack shook his head.

  ‘Dear, dear. This is very difficult. I am afraid the school boards here are now insisting on qualified teachers only. St Saviours was the only Catholic boys’ school and it’s unlikely that any of the non-Catholic schools would be prepared to take on a Catholic teacher, let alone an unqualified one.’

  Jack looked up at the priest. ‘What am I to do, Father?’

  The priest looked embarrassed and shook his head. ‘I wish I knew. I suppose you could still ask at the other schools. It’s worth trying. Do you have a letter of recommendation?’

  Jack cursed silently. He had not had any opportunity to ask Sister Callista to provide one or return the one written by Mr Quinn. He stood up and put his cap on, burning with humiliation and anger.

  ‘I’ll not waste any more of your time then, Father.’

  That night he sat in the only chair in the bedroom, a bare wooden Windsor chair, without so much as a cushion, and watched as his new wife knelt by the bedside in prayer. She had her head lowered, resting on the coverlet and was wearing her night shift. The calico fabric was stretched tightly across her back and over her distended belly.

  She paused in her mumblings and looked up at him. ‘Will you not say your prayers, Jack?’

  Prayers? What good had prayers done him? What kind of God was it who had torn him from Eliza and stood by as he was forced into this sham marriage at the hands of a priest? Religion had done nothing for him. He would renounce it. He would do without it. Yet there was a part of him that feared if he turned away from God he would cut off all hope for the future. Maybe this was some kind of test? Maybe if he trusted in God, then God would provide? He slipped onto his knees and took up his place on the opposite side of the bed and bowed his head. As he tried to find the words to pray he was distracted by the mumbled Hail Marys rattled off at speed from the other side of the bed. It sounded like meaningless mumbo jumbo. He wanted to pull Mary Ellen to her feet and ask her what she was saying. Ask her what she thought the words meant. Ask her how divine intercession would come from reciting the words over and over again until they became indistinguishable sounds with one word running into the next. He got up, grabbed his cap and jacket from the back of the door and went out.

  He walked the streets for hours, wandering aimlessly, letting his feet take him where they willed. The town was undeniably ugly. Row upon row of slum dwellings, worse than the squalid little house he had grown up in back in Derby. Grimmer than the lodging house in Liverpool. Don’t think about Liverpool. Shut it out. Close the door. She’s gone. She’s lost for ever. No more. He wanted to scream, bellow into the moonlit night, rage against the pointlessness of his life. Eliza. Eliza, what have I done? Where are you? What are you doing now?.

  He paced the streets, wincing from the blisters caused by the new shoes MacBride had bought him to get married in and he asked himself if it was his fault. Had his defiance of his parents’ wishes brought this upon him? Had he unwittingly led Mary Ellen to believe he had intentions towards her? Had he brought shame upon Eliza? He couldn’t bear to think of her, his love, alone on the transatlantic steamer, then set ashore in New York. Friendless. Penniless. The money Sister Callista had given them had been in his pocket and there had been no time to hand it over to Eliza. He wanted to scream and shout at the sheer unfairness of it all and his utter powerlessness in the face of fate. He wanted to wind back time and make it all different. They had so nearly escaped. Had the police arrived just a few minutes later the ship would have departed and how different his prospects would be. It was all so random. How could God ordain this? Why did he want to punish him?

  He found himself moving closer to the river, drawn towards the thrumming and banging sounds that were unending drumbeats in the otherwise silent night. Booming. Crashing. Thumping. And not just the noise. The sky in front of him was washed in the deepest purple with moving vermillion clouds of smoke overlaying it, twisting and writhing in saturnine patterns. Plumed lines of fire cut horizontally through the red clouds in bright yellows and oranges. He stopped and stared. The black bulk of buildings, chimneys and cranes were silhouetted against the multicoloured sky. It was the gateway to hell. The mouth of an angry volcano. Boom. Boom. Bang. Bang. Relentless movement of machinery. The stench of sulphur and smoke clogged in his throat. He saw it as a metaphor for the life that was ahead of him. He was a soul condemned to eternal damnation among the blast furnaces of this god-forsaken town. As he neared the waterfront to look across at the foundries, he saw white-capped waves lapping below, the rough sea indifferent to the ugly beauty of this manmade colossus of industrial might.

  As the early morning light diluted the inky sky, Jack turned away from the estuary and began the long, slow walk back to the house and Mary Ellen.

  Jack trudged the streets of Middlesbrough every day for three days until he had visited every school in the town. He offered to teach unpaid for a trial period until his capabilities were proven, but no one was willing to take him on. Each night, when he returned to Mrs Grainger’s boarding house, he had to endure the accusatory look of Mary Ellen when he told her he had still not secured a position.

  They had not consummated the marriage. At night Jack lingered in the communal dining room, pretending to read, while Mary Ellen went to bed, When at last he went up to their bedroom, he settled himself into the chair in the corner and draped his jacket over his chest.

  She called out to him, her voice a whine, a desperate pleading for him to join her in the bed. He tried to shut out the sound of her and to ignore the discomfort of trying to sleep upright on a small wooden chair. The thought of lying beside her in the same bed was repugnant.

  He lasted for three nights then, his body exhausted and his
nerves frayed from lack of sleep and the fruitless search for employment, he slipped into the bed once she was asleep and lay close to the edge with his body turned away from her.

  He awoke in the middle of the night to find her hands upon him under his nightshirt. Before he knew what was happening, she was astride him and he was inside her. He looked up at her face, her eyes closed and her features distorted with pleasure and concentration as she worked up and down on him rhythmically, her breathing jerky and ragged. Her swollen belly pressed against him, reminding him that there was a living child inside her. Another man’s child. A hidden witness to what they were doing. He felt overwhelmed with shame, yet at the same time overcome by the pleasure of what she was doing to him. He thought of the time he had come upon her in the alley with that man doing this same thing. Disgust filled him, but unable to stop himself he cried out involuntarily as he ejaculated into her. She slumped forward onto his chest, then heaved her body off him and lay back, her head on the pillow beside his, and reached for his hand and placed it on her breast. He pulled away, revolted, ashamed, and confused. He was even a little frightened. Frightened of how he had felt when it was happening. Frightened of the pleasure of it. Guilty for taking gratification from this woman he could never love.

  The confessional box was dim and the priest a dark shadow behind the metal grille. Jack had waited until everyone else had made their confessions. As the priest was about to emerge, Jack slipped inside the box.

  ‘You’re cutting it fine, lad. My supper will be getting cold. We’ll have to add another Hail Mary for that.’ The priest chuckled at his own joke.

  Jack wished he hadn’t come. He hoped that Father Reilly could not see him through the grille and wouldn’t recognise him. He was embarrassed.

  He garbled the words, rushing out the formulaic phrases. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It is three weeks since my last confession and these are my sins.’ As he spoke the familiar words they sounded like a nursery rhyme and he felt foolish and childish.