The Little Orphan Girl

by Sandy Taylor

  ‘Who’s Mrs Hickey?’

  ‘She’s the cook and a bit of a banshee when the kitchen isn’t running to her taste but she won’t bother us, just poor Annie.’

  ‘She won’t be unkind to her, will she?’

  ‘No, she’s a fair person, she just suffers from her nerves.’

  ‘And Rosie?’

  ‘It’s Rosie you’ll be taking over from.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’

  ‘Lady up-her-own-backside Caroline caught her kissing the groom in the stables and told her father. Poor Rosie was out on her ear.’

  ‘That was mean of her, she could have just told her off.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think, Cissy. I think she was jealous for she had her eyes on the groom herself.’

  ‘I was hoping she’d changed.’

  ‘That one will never change. She has a mean streak running through her and it’s been there since birth. Master Peter, on the other hand, is a lovely lad. I have a soft spot for him, so I do.'

  I liked Bridie and I liked the look of Annie and Mrs Hickey didn’t sound too bad either. Now all I had to hope for was that Miss baggy-knickers-up-her-own-backside Caroline Bretton didn’t remember me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘You’re really going to work for the Honourables?’ said Mary, when I told her about my new job. ‘What’s it like up there?’

  ‘It’s the most beautiful place I ever saw in my life. I only saw the drawing room and the kitchen but it’s mighty fine. Mrs Hickey seems to run the kitchen with the help of a young girl called Annie who came from the workhouse and Bridie runs the house. The last girl was sent home for getting caught kissing a young feller in the stables. What sort of eejit loses a grand job like that on account of a feller?’

  ‘Blowsy types,’ said Mary.

  ‘Like Alana Walsh?’

  ‘Just like Alana Walsh.’

  ‘I’d say you’re right but that’s not going to happen to me. Anyway, I promised the mammy I’d be a good girl.’

  ‘That might go out the window when you’re in the arms of some handsome lad.’

  ‘No, I’m definitely going to keep my promise, however handsome he is.’

  ‘Have you severed the contract between yourself and Colm Doyle yet?’

  ‘Like you said, Colm only said he would wait for me to please me and anyway, I have a fine job now. I won’t have time to be pining over Colm Doyle.’

  ‘I think that’s very wise, Cissy.’

  ‘What about you, Mary? Where are you going to work?’

  ‘My mother is enquiring about a job in the workhouse but I’d be afeared to work there.’

  ‘What would you be doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just hope it wouldn’t be looking after the poor demented souls. I’d be terrible scared, Cissy.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as you think, they are more to be pitied than feared and if you didn’t like it, you could always leave.’

  ‘That’s true but my mother says it’s a good steady job and if they take me on, I should be grateful.’

  ‘Where would you rather work?’

  ‘I think I’d rather work out at the Green Park Hotel and meet all the swanky people in their swanky carriages. I’ll never see the light of day up at the workhouse.’

  ‘Have you never considered going into service like meself?’

  ‘Jesus, I couldn’t be coping with that! Cleaning up after people and washing their dirty clothes when there’s no reason why they can’t be cleaning up after themselves.’

  ‘Honourables couldn’t clean up after themselves, Mary. They’re far too high-born for that.’

  ‘But sure, they’re only people, with two good arms and two good legs like the rest of us.’

  ‘Oh, Mary, they are definitely not like the rest of us. They’ve not been brought up to look after themselves like we have.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t catch me looking after them.’

  ‘I don’t mind. I like cleaning up and it’s all so lovely.’

  ‘When are you starting?’

  ‘When school finishes in two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Don’t you feel as if it’s the end of our childhood?’

  ‘I think my childhood ended the day I left the workhouse. I was a child until that day.’

  ‘It must have been awful hard for you, Cissy, having to leave the only home you’d ever known.’

  ‘When I was there, Nora and me would play all day, roaming about the place and helping Mrs Foley with the little ones. It never once occurred to either of us that it was a strange place to live, it was just home and then I got up one morning and I was told that I would be leaving that day with a mammy that I didn’t know. No one said I’d be leaving forever, I thought it was just going to be a day out. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to everyone. It was a very confusing day, Mary.’

  ‘You weren’t sad for long, though?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t sad for long because I grew to love the mammy and the granddaddy and I had no mind to go back. One day, when I have a pile of money and house of my own, I shall take Nora out of that place and bring her home to live with me.’

  Mary nodded and smiled at me. ‘It’s good to have a dream, Cissy. I think that everyone should have one.’

  ‘What’s your dream, Mary?’

  ‘To go to America.’

  ‘Really? You’d really leave Ballybun and live in that pagan land?’

  ‘Sure it’s not all pagan, Cissy. I have an uncle who went over there and he says you can always find your own people, mostly in the nearest pub, and there’s a priest on every corner. He said that half the population of Ireland went there when the potato crops failed.’

  ‘You’d think they could have found something else to eat ,wouldn’t you?’ I said. ‘I mean, there’s fish in the rivers and birds in the trees and rabbits and all sorts of life that they could have eaten.’

  ‘You should ask your granddaddy, for he lived through it and he would know.’

  ‘What will you do in America?’

  ‘I haven’t thought that far ahead but America is my dream and one day I shall go there on a big ship and marry a rich man and live in a fine house and have two children who will mind what I say and we’ll all live happily ever after.’

  ‘That sounds like a great dream, Mary, and I wish you well.’

  ‘Thank you, Cissy. Now all I’ve to do is save up like mad, even if that means I’ll have to work up the hill.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you miss your family?’

  ‘Jesus, Cissy, it’s like living in a mad house! There’s always a baby screaming its head off or peeing on the floor. There’s always someone’s dirty arse to clean or a snotty nose to wipe. The only one that’s house-trained is the dog. You can’t move in there for bloody kids. I don’t even get any peace at night ’cos there’s a pile of them in the bed with me. I do love them, Cissy, but I envy you living in your little cottage with just your mam and the granddaddy.’

  ‘It can’t be easy,’ I agreed.

  ‘It’s not, but when I go to America and get married I shall just have two children, a boy and a girl, and that will be the end of it.’

  ‘But how do you stop having children?’

  Mary thought for a minute: ‘Single beds,’ she said, grinning.

  ‘You’ll need a mighty placid man to put up with that.’

  ‘And I’ll find him.’

  ‘Then I hope it goes well for you, Mary.’

  ‘It will.’

  When I got home I asked the granddaddy about the Potato Famine.

  ‘It was a terrible time, Cissy. I was fifteen when the crops began to fail. The stench of rotting potatoes coming off the fields made you sick to your stomach. To this day, I can smell it. It’s not a smell that is easily forgotten. The crops failed for four years. Me and my older brother were the only ones in the family to survive.’

  ‘Did you have a big family?’

  ‘I had six sisters and four brothers.’

>   ‘And they all died?’

  ‘Some of them starved, some died from the typhus, the rest from eating diseased potatoes.’

  I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I listened to the granddaddy telling his story. He’d lost his family and that was the saddest thing. I was glad that now he had me and the mammy and Buddy to love; I was glad he wasn’t alone.

  ‘It made me a bitter man, a hard man. Where was God when His people needed Him? That’s what I wondered.’

  ‘Sister Bridgette used to say that we must have faith and not question the ways of the Lord.’

  ‘When your baby sister dies in your arms, Cissy, faith goes out the window.’

  I rested my head on his old knee. ‘Oh, Granddaddy,’ I said.

  He gently stroked my hair. ‘They were bad times alright.’

  ‘Was there nothing else that you could have eaten?’

  ‘The potato was an easy thing to grow. It didn’t matter what the ground was like, the potato thrived. A single acre of stony ground could feed a family of six.’

  ‘What about fish? Couldn’t you have taken the fish from the sea?’

  ‘Ireland was, and still is, a poor country, Cissy. The people had neither the skills nor the equipment to fish these rough Irish seas and by the time things became desperate, they hadn’t the strength.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to America?’

  ‘We owned a small cottage and a piece of land. It was ours; there was no English landlord to throw us into the streets, it was the only thing we had. Our mother and father urged us to go with them but if we’d left for America, we’d have lost it for sure. Tales reaching us were that many never even made it there, they died on the journey. Those ships came to be known as “coffin ships”. We never heard from our parents again. We never knew if they had reached America or not but I think that if they had, we would have had word from them. So me and my brother stayed and survived on the soup kitchens until the potato thrived again.’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t die, Granddaddy,’ I said.

  Granddaddy didn’t say anything, he just stared into the fire.

  ‘If you’d died, I wouldn’t be here and the mammy wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘And I don’t deserve either of you,’ he said.

  ‘Sure, why would you be saying that?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t there when you needed me. I sent you up to that godforsaken place and then God forgive me, I called you a bastard. It would be easy to blame what I did on the drink, but maybe I just had a black heart.’

  ‘It’s not black now, Granddaddy. Sure it’s as white as snow and don’t worry about that name you called me. I didn’t know what it meant, so it didn’t upset me one bit and don’t worry about God, He’ll forgive you alright. He’s a very forgiving person. He forgave that robber who was hanging on the cross next to him. He even invited him to dinner.’

  ‘Did He?’

  ‘Oh, He did, so you have nothing to be fretting about.’

  ‘I don’t think He’ll be inviting me to dinner, Cissy. I’ve been a terrible bad man in my life.’

  ‘But you’re not bad now, are you, Granddaddy? You’re as good as gold and I’d say He’d be glad to have you. You’ll be sitting on a lovely white cloud with your old legs hanging over the side and you’ll be grand altogether. He might even give you a harp and a pair of wings if you’re lucky.’

  Granddaddy started chuckling. ‘Where on earth did you come from, child?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue but I’d say it had something to do with the Angel Gabriel.’

  ‘And how do you figure that out?’

  ‘Well, the angel came down from heaven and told the Virgin Mary she was having a child, so I think that’s how it works. That angel must have visited the mammy.’

  ‘I have a feeling it wasn’t an angel that visited her, but we won’t go into that,’ replied the granddaddy.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I didn’t bother going back to school once I got the job and the mammy didn’t mind.

  ‘Enjoy your freedom while you can, Cissy,’ she’d said.

  Some days I’d meet Mary after school and we’d spend time down on the quay or up at Collins’s farm with the animals. Buddy and Eddie loved chasing the chickens around the place.

  One afternoon, we were sitting on the wall watching the boats. The two little dogs were sniffing round the fresh catch of fish on the dock and being shooed away by the fishermen.

  ‘You could always work on a farm in America, Mary. You love animals.’

  ‘I might love animals but I’ve no intention of mucking out pigs for a living. I’m going to marry a rich feller. I intend never to work again.’

  ‘What will you do, then?’

  ‘I’ll order the staff about and I’ll eat fancy food and go to posh hotels with my handsome husband.’

  I giggled. ‘And if that doesn’t work out you can always work on a farm and marry a big old farmer with a hairy chin and a red old face.’

  Mary pushed me off the wall. ‘You wait and see, Cissy Ryan. My dream’s going to come true, so there!’

  ‘I was just codding ya, I have no doubt in my mind that one day you will have everything you want.’

  Mary grinned. ‘I’m going to miss seeing you every day.’

  ‘Well, if you get that job up at the workhouse I’ll maybe get to see you on a Sunday morning before Mass.’

  Colm had tired of Alana Walsh after only a couple of months so we spent as much time together as we could. I went out on the milk round every morning, and after I’d helped Mammy in the cottage, we spent the rest of the day together. We walked the fields with Buddy and we sat down on the quayside and watched the boats.

  One day we were sitting on the rocks under the lighthouse when I said, ‘Do you know if I ever had a daddy, Colm?’

  ‘Sure, everyone has a daddy.’

  ‘That’s why I’m asking, because there doesn’t seem to be any sign of mine.’

  ‘Well now, Cissy, I can’t help you there. I was only about six years old when your mammy went into the workhouse and you’d only just been born. No one has ever spoken of it that I can remember.’

  ‘It’s okay, I was just wondering is all.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘What you’ve never had, you don’t miss.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask your mammy?’

  ‘Because I don’t know how she’ll take it; she has a fearful temper and a sharp tongue, she said so herself.’

  ‘I guess it depends how much you want to know. I mean, is it worth bringing the wrath of the mammy down on your head for?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  We stood up and walked down to the water’s edge. Colm picked up a flat stone and threw it into the sea. It bounced across the surface four times.

  ‘Can you teach me to do that?’ I asked.

  Colm found another flat stone. He stood behind me and showed me how to hold it in my palm so that it skimmed the water. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck and I wanted to put my arms around him and hold him close. Instead, I dropped the stone and walked away back up the beach. Colm caught up with me.

  ‘Giving up already?’ he said.

  I turned to face him. ‘Will you miss me when I’m gone, Colm?’

  ‘I will, of course.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too.’

  ‘You won’t have time to miss me, Cissy. You’ll be too busy living the high life with the highbrows up on the hill.’

  ‘I’ll never forget you, Colm.’

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘You might forget me.’

  ‘You’re only going up the hill, Cissy, you’re not taking the next boat to Liverpool.’

  ‘Am I being silly?’

  Colm put his arm around my shoulder. ‘I’m afraid so. Anyway, you’ll see me every morning and on your Sundays off, we’ll see your little friend Nora.’

  ‘I wish Nora could get a job with the Honourables but Mrs Foley said she wouldn’t be strong enough for all t
he heavy lifting. Unless I get a house of my own, I don’t think that Nora will ever get out of that place.’

  ‘Does she want to get out?’

  ‘I’ve never asked her, it might make her sad if I asked.’

  ‘You have a kind heart, Cissy.’

  ‘I hope the granddaddy will manage without me. He’s getting very old, Colm, and I worry about him.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him, so don’t you be worrying yourself about that. And every time I’ve seen Nora, she seems happy enough. It’s time you started thinking about yourself and stopped worrying about everyone else.’

  ‘I only worry about the people I love, Colm Doyle, and I’ll worry about them for the rest of my life,’ I snapped.

  Colm held his hands up. ‘I’m glad to see you have the fighting spirit, that might come in handy when Miss Baggy Knickers comes home from school.’

  ‘Why did you have to remind me about her?’ I said, punching his arm.

  ‘Truce?’ he said.

  ‘Truce,’ I said, laughing.

  One afternoon I was helping Mammy clean the potatoes.

  ‘How old is Granddaddy?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t even think he knows himself,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘That’s not a proper answer,’ I said.

  ‘He’s always seemed old to me, Cissy. A mean, bigoted old man.’

  ‘But he’s not so bad now, is he?’

  Mammy looked at me and smiled. ‘You’re right, he’s not and I’d say that is because of you. You reached into that icy old heart of his and you warmed it with your chatter and your smiles. You made him love you, Cissy, whether he wanted to or not.’

  I took another potato out of the water. ‘Can I ask you something, Mammy?’

  ‘Ask away.’

  ‘Promise you won’t be cross?’

  Mammy smiled. ‘I promise I won’t be cross.’

  ‘Do I have a daddy?’

  Mammy was quiet for a minute, then she wiped her hands on a cloth. ‘Come and sit with me, Cissy,’ she said.

  The granddaddy was outside on his chair so Mammy sat beside the fire and I sat at her feet.