Flowers on the Mersey

by June Francis

  ‘Yes. But I wasn’t brought up to think about my own enjoyment.’ She knelt on the grass. ‘It’s different for girls.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ He stretched out. ‘And as well as that, I’m Catholic and a rebel.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You think they’re insurmountable objects to our getting to know each other?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He leant on his elbow and his expression was thoughtful. ‘They probably are.’

  She frowned. ‘Yes. Although you act like they’re not there. It’s the same with the shooting earlier. You seem to be able to brush it aside. I saw it and it’s the kind of thing that makes me glad to be leaving.’

  ‘You’ve made your point.’ He looked over the sea, his expression sombre.

  Rebekah’s eyes followed his and she considered it wise to change the subject. ‘Papa says that America has breathtaking scenery.’

  It was a couple of minutes before he responded and then it seemed it was with a struggle. ‘Would you mind going to America?’

  ‘I haven’t thought about it much.’ She twisted her hat between her hands. ‘Liverpool – Ireland – America,’ she murmured. ‘They have strong links. Mama was telling me about her side of the family. My grandfather had some kind of wholesale shop. He came down from Bolton in Lancashire during the American Civil War because thousands were out of work. The ships blockaded the Southern ports in America, which meant there was no cotton for the mills. They were hard times. So he went to Liverpool looking for work.’

  ‘How did he make the money to buy the shop?’ Daniel broke off a blade of grass and chewed on it.

  She leant towards him, her expression lively. ‘He went to the Meeting House on first-day – that’s Sunday to you – and the owner took him on. He worked hard. When the boss died he married his daughter. Papa wasn’t so lucky. He’d hitched a ride on one of the wagons up from the docks to my grandfather’s shop. He’d just got off the boat from Ireland after a quarrel with his brother. Till then he lived on the family farm. He came in looking for a job and met Mama. They married against my grandfather’s wishes. Because he was Quaker, she was treated like she didn’t exist by him and the Friends.’

  ‘What made your father come back to Ireland?’

  She smiled. ‘Mama says it was to put the sea between them and her father. But his mother had written to him. He had two brothers and one had sickened and died. What about your family?’

  He threw the grass down. ‘There’s only Shaun and me now, although we have relatives in Liverpool. My mam’s sister’s family.’ He stared down at his hands. ‘There was money once. My great-grandfather had land. Out of his own pocket he drained a marsh to grow more crops. The only trouble was that the landlord owned the land. During the potato famine he took it back.’ His expression darkened. ‘D’you know what it does to a man to lose his roots? The land which his family has farmed for generations?’

  ‘It happens in Ireland.’ Her tone was philosophical. ‘Papa’s family farm has gone now. I’m sorry that you lost your land.’

  Daniel’s eyes softened. He took her hand and kissed it. She ran her fingers over his mouth. The next moment he pulled her down and she sprawled on top of him. He kissed her forcefully and she responded with a slowly growing passion. His hands roamed her back, coming to rest on her covered bottom. Instantly she was alerted and attempted to push them away, aware of a hardness beneath her. She felt the sigh run through him and then he pushed her off.

  ‘We’d best get back.’ He stood up, holding out a hand to her.

  She took it. ‘I’ve been thinking that for the last half hour,’ she murmured.

  ‘I know.’ He grimaced. ‘Where do you live?’

  She hesitated, considering how her father had always stressed not giving their name and address to strangers.

  ‘You don’t trust me, do you?’ His dark brows drew together.

  ‘My father – he’s getting almost as nervous as Mama,’ she excused. ‘But if you still want to, you can walk with me as far as Trinity College.’

  He nodded but his expression was angry. ‘When I was a lad and we had nothing, I wished I could have killed that landlord who took our land. But now I’m just wishing that you could believe in what I believe. Understand why we have to fight against British Imperialism.’

  ‘Vengeance is mine saith the Lord,’ she murmured.

  Daniel’s laugh had a bitter sound to it. ‘But who’s to do His dirty work?’

  Rebekah shook her head, feeling unexpectedly depressed. ‘I only know that killing creates suffering and it is destroying Ireland. Will that do for an answer?’ She turned and walked away.

  Daniel caught up with her. ‘I hate violence as much as you do. It’s just that there’s no other way.’

  ‘Don’t lets talk about it any more. There’s no point.’

  ‘I suppose not if you’re leaving. I’ll walk with you as far as Trinity.’

  She nodded and silently they began the walk back, side by side.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rebekah was out of breath with rushing by the time she reached the red-brick Georgian terraced house where she lived. Pausing on the step, she pressed the palms of her hands to her hot cheeks in an attempt to cool them as she tried to empty her mind of Daniel and everything that had happened since she left the house, but he was still in her thoughts when the front door with its shiny brass knocker was pulled open.

  In the doorway stood the tall, soberly clad figure of Hannah. Her coal black eyes bored into Rebekah’s. ‘So thee’s come back after all. I bet yers been with a fella!’ she declared triumphantly in her mixture of old-fashioned Quaker speech and Liverpudlian. ‘It’s written all over thee so don’t be denying it! It’s one of those lads from up the street, isn’t it? One of those clothes horses! One of those strutting peacocks! Well, yer father’s been home, and in a right mood he was – even before I told him that thou hast been missing all afternoon and still not home! He’s gone to look for thee.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’ demanded Rebekah, pushing past the maid. ‘Where’s Mama? You didn’t say anything to either of them about fellas? Because it’s all lies.’

  ‘Of course I did to yer father.’ Hannah hurried in after her and would have closed the door, but suddenly it was taken out of her hand and slammed.

  Rebekah turned swiftly, her heart sinking at the grim expression on her father’s still handsome features. ‘Go and tell my wife that her daughter’s home, Hannah, and then go to the kitchen.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Rhoades.’ Hannah shot a triumphant glance at Rebekah before disappearing into the dining room.

  Her father’s hand fastened on Rebekah’s arm, causing her to wince. ‘Up the stairs, miss. I don’t want your mother hearing what I have to say. She’s been worried about you.’

  ‘But I told Hannah I was going to see Old Mary earlier on,’ she said, almost tripping over her feet as he hurried her along the lobby past the solemnly ticking grandfather clock. ‘Honestly, Papa, I did go there.’

  ‘Old Mary didn’t remember you being there – but then that’s not surprising according to your mother, and considering the soldiers were searching the houses,’ he muttered, dragging her up the stairs. He was breathing heavily and paused for breath on the landing, leaning against the brown-painted wall next to an oil painting of Kingstown harbour.

  The painting instantly reminded Rebekah of Daniel kissing her and her cheeks warmed. She was aware of her father’s regard. Had someone seen her with Daniel? ‘Papa, I dawdled home,’ she said hastily. ‘It’s been a lovely day.’

  He straightened and his expression was thunderous. ‘You weren’t dawdling alone, though, miss, were you?’ He pushed her with some force along the landing. ‘I saw you as you came past Trinity College, his hand on your arm and you looking up at him.’ His bedroom door yielded beneath his touch and sunlight touched them as it filtered through the lace curtains and heavy dusty velvet drapes that adorned the multiple paned window
s that reached almost ceiling to floor.

  Rebekah closed her eyes against the sun’s brightness and sought for words. ‘I can explain!’

  ‘I’d be interested to hear a reasonable explanation for you being in Daniel O’Neill’s company,’ he said through his teeth, the palm of his hand in the small of her back sending her flying across the room onto the patchwork quilt of the old mahogany bed.

  She gasped with shock, pushing herself up, and turned her head just in time to see her father take a switch from the wardrobe. Both belonged to the owner of the house and the switch had never been used on her, although her father had told her how he had been beaten as a boy. Her eyes dilated with apprehension. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Down, miss. This is going to hurt me more than you.’ He swiped the air with the switch, making a whooshing noise, and took a deep breath. ‘I should never have listened to your mother when she said that we shouldn’t heed the scriptures where they say spare the rod and spoil the child, but I did because you were a girl.’ He advanced towards the bed. ‘But I never thought a daughter of mine would be cavorting with the likes of Daniel O’Neill! Didn’t you think of the danger you could be putting us all in?’ he shouted.

  ‘He only walked with me to Trinity!’ She struggled as he forced her face down on the bed and flung her skirts up. The first stinging blows landed on her cami-knicker clad bottom and she yelped. Never before had he raised a hand in violence against her.

  ‘You should not be walking with him at all!’ he cried. ‘There’s a price on his head, and if you had been seen by either side you could be dead! We could all be dead!’

  The blows, and the words, sent shock waves through her. ‘How do you know he’s got a price on his head?’ she gasped, trying to free her head from the folds of her skirts.

  ‘How do I know? Because I’ve seen the poster. His brothers had prices on their heads. The whole family’s rotten. His two older brothers are dead, but he and his younger brother are wanted. One of the soldiers said the one you were with is like the bloody Scarlet Pimpernel because he keeps disappearing.’ His swearing shocked her as much as being beaten. ‘Have you been meeting him regularly? What have you been saying to him?’ he panted. ‘Is it you that has been providing the Sinn Feiners with information?’

  ‘What information? I don’t know what you mean,’ she croaked, catching her breath as another blow landed.

  Adam Rhoades leant against the foot of the bed, the switch dangling from his hand, and said harshly, ‘Did you know that another army barracks has been attacked and several men killed? Also a goods train has been derailed. Becky, Shaun O’Neill is implicated, and if he’s involved then it must go without saying that his brother is as well.’

  Rebekah was filled with dismay. ‘I don’t know anything about that! I only met him today outside Old Mary’s. She’s an old neighbour of his mother’s.’

  There was a silence and she felt the bed give as her father sat on it. ‘You’re telling me the truth about only meeting him today?’ His voice was a little more controlled.

  ‘Yes!’ She struggled again to free her head. How dare he degrade her in such a way at her age? She would never forgive him! Never!

  ‘Perhaps it was him the soldiers were looking for?’ he muttered angrily. She remained silent and when she did not answer the switch came down again but there was less strength in the blow. ‘Don’t you know better than to get involved with a man like that?’ His voice trembled. ‘Why was it you took so long to reach Trinity? Did you flirt with him?’

  ‘No!’ She stopped struggling and lay still.

  ‘I can’t emphasise too much, Becky, the danger you could have been in. We’ve had friends disappear. He could have known who you were and tried to get to me through you.’

  ‘Papa, he didn’t know who I was!’ she cried, her fingers clenching on the bedspread as she searched for the right words to channel his thoughts into a different direction. ‘It wasn’t like you say at all. We walked as far as the bay because it was such a nice day, and he told me a story about the Land of the Ever Young.’

  ‘What?’ He sounded disbelieving.

  ‘It’s the truth.’ She crossed her fingers.

  Her father made a disgusted noise. ‘Faery tales! The man’s a dreamer and a fool. That’s the trouble with some of these rebels. They lack a sense of reality.’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’ She was suddenly thinking that Daniel had seemed the most real person she had ever met.

  There was a silence and she felt her father pull down her skirts. Relief made her body sag. Then he demanded, ‘But why did you go with him in the first place?’

  Rebekah tensed again but thought quickly. ‘He wanted to know how Old Mary had been. He hadn’t seen her for a while.’

  The room was silent again but for the sound of his heavy breathing. ‘I hope that’s the truth, Becky. I’ve never known you to lie to me before, but—’

  ‘It is the truth,’ she said in a low voice. ‘And don’t be thinking, Papa, that he’ll try and see me again because I told him that we were leaving Ireland.’

  ‘Good!’ He sighed. ‘Thank God we’re going at last. Your poor mother worrying about everything and everybody. The never knowing who might be next.’ He wiped a hand over his sweaty face. ‘We should have gone years ago.’

  ‘But we’re going now,’ she said. ‘Mama will get better.’

  ‘Yes. But there’s nothing definite settled. There’ll be uncertainties still, but I’ve been thrifty so that’s in our favour.’ He stared at the switch in his hand and violently threw it across the room. ‘I shouldn’t have hit you so hard,’ he said jerkily. ‘I’ll send Hannah up and she can wash and anoint the weals.’

  ‘No!’

  He stood up, frowning, ‘I don’t want to be upsetting your mother. There’s been enough of that lately due to that aunt of yours – so no mention of this, and I’ll expect you down to dinner.’ He held out a hand. ‘I’ll see you to your room.’

  She ignored his hand, shrinking from physical contact with him, and got herself up.

  He left Rebekah outside her room and within moments she was lying on her stomach on the bed, easing off her T-strap shoes. She was in pain, and her emotions were a tangle of hurt, anger, guilt and resentment. She could understand her father’s fears but was still shocked by his violent reaction to having seen her in Daniel’s company. He had never been an over-indulgent father but he had been approachable, if on the whole leaving most of the decisions concerning her upbringing to her mother. Only in the matter of religion had he insisted that she attend his church, although he had never quarrelled with her mother’s insistence that teaching her something about Quaker beliefs would not harm her. Only in the last two years had father and daughter rubbed each other up the wrong way. He had found her a job in the tax department where he had a position of authority. (The previous man had left because of the tenuous hold the British government had in Ireland.) Making friends had not been easy and young men had been wary about approaching her. In a way life had become simpler when her mother had collapsed while shopping and she had to give up her job.

  As Becky remembered the tedium of those earlier months of her mother’s illness, she compared her life then with what had happened today. Her mother had been frightened to be in the house alone, and scared of going outdoors. Becky had been almost completely tied to her. She remembered how relieved she had been when Hannah first arrived, until she had got to know her better. As an example of a Quaker and Liverpudlian, Becky could have been put off both if it had not been for her mother. Being cast out of the Liverpudlian meeting house had not embittered her. She had a genuine love for her home town, a belief in the brotherhood of all men and women, and abhorred violence. If Becky had not met Daniel she would have had little to regret in leaving Dublin. It was no longer the safe place of her childhood.

  Were her father’s suspicions about Daniel true? She did not want to believe that he was a killer. The word sent a shiver through her, conjuring up
images. Then she remembered his words and the feel of his arms and decided that it was a good job that they were going because she would have found it difficult to turn him down if he had asked her out again. She forced herself on to her knees. It would have been much more sensible if she had not waited for him and gone to meet Willie, who, because he was unexciting, caused little disturbance to her emotions.

  As Rebekah began to undress, Daniel’s words about the softness of her skin came to mind. She imagined his mouth on her naked flesh and grew hot and damp and tingly. She gave up undressing to reach for her brassbound leather Bible on the old-fashioned bedside cabinet. Her sleeve caught the angel holding a candle and she dropped the Bible quickly to save the candleholder from breaking. It belonged to the owner of the house as did most of the furnishing in the place. He had left for England when the troubles started and as they had been living in a small damp house, her mother had coaxed her father into renting this one, even though it was too large for them, the furniture old-fashioned, and only downstairs lit by gas.

  Replacing the angel, she picked up her Bible again. She should be asking God’s forgiveness for lying, seeking perfection instead of thinking thoughts which she felt sure her parents wouldn’t approve of. She remembered the girls who had come to the house during the war to fetch their younger brothers and sisters whom her mother had taken in, fed with soup and bread, and attempted to teach them their letters. The girls had talked about boys and men, love, and how babies were made.

  A door downstairs opened and Becky heard Hannah’s sharp tones mingling with her father’s deeper ones. Quickly the Bible was placed haphazardly on the bedside cabinet and she rushed over to the half-empty wardrobe and brought out a primrose-coloured georgette dinner frock, the only such garment she had. From the dressing table she took some cotton knickers and a scarf. For a moment she stood naked, twisting to see and gingerly feeling the weals across her lower back and buttocks. Then she dragged on a white cotton robe and went over to the mahogany and marble washstand.