by Mary Wood
Everything in her rebelled against being released, but she didn’t show it. She only asked, ‘Trouble? Why?’
‘Wasn’t it me as was planning to take you away from them two, after I missed me chance at the convent?’
‘You have been after looking for me? Why? How?’
‘It’s a long story, and some of it I cannot tell you of, but I was to meet up with your pappy. When I arrived at the given place, I heard tell of what had happened and where they had taken you. There was money in finding Michael O’Hara, and I was for having some of it. Besides, he owed me a payment, but then didn’t he go and take himself to the Devil before he could pay me? But I figured as you would have access to what he has, and can do the right thing by me.’
Shock flared her temper. ‘Seamus Finney, ’tis a rat you are! Didn’t my parents give you many a slice of bread and meat when you were hungry? Did you plan to repay them by helping those who would have seen me pappy hang?’
‘Ha! You have the fire in you the colour of your hair tells of, but you know little of the truth, and if you did know it, I know you wouldn’t condemn me. Come and sit down. ’Tis good you have come to me. Those two who had you are not the ones as should be taking care of you. I’m for thinking as they are only out for what they can get.’
It came to her to ask whether he wasn’t after wanting to do the same, but shame pricked her. She looked away from Seamus. He knew . . . he knew what her pappy had done to her!
‘Aye, well, don’t be looking away. ’Tis common knowledge what happened, so I expect you’ll be agreeing your pappy was deserving of his fate. He was a bastard, so he was. Your poor mammy . . .’
A beaten feeling took her. Her chest swelled with the deep breath she gasped into it, but the swell folded in on her and the tears she’d fought tumbled down her cheeks, weakening every part of her. Her body sank to the ground.
‘Poor little Bridie, protected by a monster, for the use of him. I should have been for kidnapping you years ago, as me heart wanted me to.’
The warmth of his body gave her a safe place. Her sobs shook into him. His kisses felt right. She needed no strength to fight him. She wanted the comfort he gave her. Wanted . . .
‘Me Bridie. Me beautiful Bridie. Haven’t I dreamed of being in the deep pool of your velvet Irish eyes? Haven’t I wanted to stroke this glorious red hair and twirl the curls of it around me fingers and count the freckles on your pretty nose? And now you’re all grown and have the body of a goddess . . . Oh, Bridie . . .’
Holding her close, his hands caressed her, his lips planting kisses in her hair, over her face and on the tip of her nose until a peace came to her.
The scent of wood smoke and fresh, unspoilt air on his neckerchief as she wiped her face with it evoked the memories embedded in her of all that he was. And it was for conjuring up the feeling she seemed to have lost of freedom from the cares of the world, and of love. Sure, a childish love it had been, but sweet in the uncomplicated nature of it.
In his comforting of her he hadn’t been for doing what the others who were meant to protect her had done. This gave her security, yet a part of her had wanted him to, and she wasn’t for knowing how to deal with the trickle of disappointment that shocked the core of her, as this realization hit her.
‘Are you feeling better now, me little Bridie?’
‘Yes, I am. I feared for me life and didn’t know where I could go. Will you be after helping me, Seamus?’
‘Aye, if it is in me power. But tell me, what is it you are running from? Have they not been treating you right? Here I was, trying to work out a plan of how to get you from them, and ’tis as if me thoughts conjured you up. ’Tis mystified as I am.’
Bridie told him all that had happened to her, and she didn’t shy away from telling him about George Bottomley’s treatment of her. She wanted him to understand her urgent need of his help.
‘’Tis the grown-up world you are in now, Bridie, and without the benefit of your mammy’s preparation. The beauty of you is hard for a man to resist, and you have a special quality that will always bring out the urge that drives men wild. Sure, ’tis only men of the likes of your pappy, and the swine you have escaped from, who will use you in that way. You will learn to recognize them and to deal with them. I’ll bide me time, but your uncle will pay, so he will.’
Bridie didn’t understand all he said, but the knowledge of her own pappy that she couldn’t deny pained her. ‘Seamus, will you tell me what it was me pappy had done before we left Ireland? I need to understand it all.’
Seamus shook his head.
‘But if I know, it will be easier for me. I’m trying to defend him against what everyone hints at. And trying to find a reason for how he came to do what he did to me.’
‘Well, some of it will shock and hurt you, but if it is sure you are?’
She nodded and snuggled into him as he placed his arm around her again.
‘Your pappy was a bastard. He was for treating your mammy like she was dirt. He had women doing his bidding in just about every corner of Ireland – women whose husbands were afraid of him and what they knew he stood for.’
‘What did he stand for?’
‘Before I tell you, remember you had no choice in the man who sired you.’
‘I will, Seamus.’
‘Your pappy was a freedom-fighter, a Fenian. Now, the wrongs or rights of his leanings were nothing to me. I am what I am: a traveller. I’ve no Romany blood, I’m just as me family was before me, and I make me living any way I can. ’Tis right I’d not think twice about handing a man of your pappy’s character in to the police for the gain as would come to me, but then ’tis what he planned to do to me.’ He went on to tell her of how her father had put Seamus’s name forward to save his own skin, and then said, ‘Bridie, many of the ways I make me living are of a dishonest nature, but still I rank meself higher than him in the morals I follow. The money he has stashed away is blood-money, and some of it he got by going away from his own cause and turning in information. Aye, he was a traitor. I know of it because there was a time I believed in him. I even helped him to gain some of it.’
‘How?’
‘He was in the drink one evening, sitting by me fire, and he told me of his wealth and how he was going to make sure his little Bridie was going to be all right, no matter what befell him. He convinced me to help him, and I set a fire as killed many who opposed the freedom-fighters. The men of the cause gave money to him to pay someone to do it, but he laughed in me face when it came to the payment and said I needed to do more . . .’ He told her then of his last act in killing the wrong man. ‘I had the choice to do him in then, or bide me time to get me dues before I brought about his end. I decided on the last course. Why put him to the Devil and lose out meself? No, I was for getting me money, and then turning the bastard in.’
The truth stunned her. None of it tallied with her memory of her pappy and, yet, maybe it did with the man she had seen at the end of his life.
Knowing of his true nature cemented the hate she held in her. Seamus was right: she could not have chosen her father. Memories of her mother weeping in her bedroom, where she thought she’d not be heard, and of the frightening feeling inside herself at these times, cut into her. But then, hadn’t the truth of it all surrounded her? The cries in the night, the cut lips, the blackened eyes. But her pappy had only to lift her in the air and call her his ‘wee Bridie’ to have her heart fill with love for him, and to have her accept that her mother was clumsy and had fallen again.
Thinking of all this, she came to a conclusion: wasn’t killing himself the only decent thing her father had ever done? And the redeeming fact of him doing so was because he felt the shame of his final act. Sure, he may never have felt shame at anything he’d done before, but he had at what he had done to her. But what of Seamus? The horror of his part in it all sickened her. At this moment he didn’t feel like someone she could trust. But then, wasn’t there a strange honesty in Seamus? He had told he
r he was what he was. He hadn’t been for hiding his ways from her. Wasn’t he her only hope? She’d have to be finding a way to live with what he’d done.
‘Are you not listening to me, Bridie? You have to put it all in the past and carry on with your life. Your pappy isn’t worth anything else. He wasn’t in life, and isn’t in the death of him.’
‘I’m all right, Seamus. I’m glad I know what he was like. I was for thinking everything had been my fault, that there is a sin about me. Even my Aunt Jeannie only took me in because of the money. And then, when her husband tried . . .’
‘Don’t be upsetting yourself again. Come on, now. You say he tried, but he wasn’t for managing to do it, was he?’
‘No. I kicked him.’
‘Oh, me Bridie, I knew you had a temper in you. You were for showing it many times when you were a wee child. Tell me. How was it your pappy . . . ?’
‘I didn’t let him. I . . . You can’t be thinking I’d let him? I fought. I fought with all me might, but the rolling of the boat and the strength of him. He got all my clothes off. He . . .’
‘Aye, I know the way of it. But, Bridie, folk are of the opinion there is no such thing as rape.’
He was right. She knew that. The words of George Bottomley came back to her: ‘some of what you gave to your dad . . .’ Even though she had managed to stop her pappy, no one would believe her.
‘Oh, Seamus, what am I to do?’
‘I have been making you think about how it is others see what happened, because I want you to think about getting away. Right away, and to not take against using your pappy’s money to help you do so.’
‘Where? Where could I go that people don’t know the tale of what happened?’
‘America.’
‘America!’
‘Aye, America is what I said. You have memory of Patrick O’Leary, the Belfast tailor? Well, his son Jimmy went to America. Patrick told me he spoke of a land of plenty when he wrote home. He said I would be able to make me way over there, on account of how good I am with healing anything that ails the horses. He says horses are of the utmost importance to the Americans. We could go together.’
‘How?’
‘You have access to the money, do you not?’
‘I am hoping to soon.’ She told him what had happened at the bank.
‘How long is it all to take?’
‘I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe.’
He fell silent for a moment. ‘’Tis as I was hoping to go soon. But as it is, with you joining me, there are things I will need to do. You say this bank man won’t take you to work for him without your aunt agreeing? Well, Bridie, ’tis little choice you have. You have to go back. Say nothing about your uncle’s actions, but talk to them about the money. Tell them how grateful you are to them and how you will be for giving them the lot of it, if only they will agree to you taking this job. Tell them ’tis better all round, and you will meet up with your aunt whenever you can, but you will be from under their feet and can contribute from your wages in the meantime. But, whatever you do, don’t ever be alone with this Bottomley again. He could take your silence as you having thought better of refusing him, and be ready to make his move if the chance to do so presents itself.’
‘But I don’t want to go back.’
‘You must, Bridie. ’Tis the only way you will be safe until you can get the money. I will set up camp near to you as soon as you let me know where you are. I will be there for you. You can pretend you need a walk in the evenings once the children are in bed, and come to me.’
This part of his plan softened the rest of it. She knew he was right, but then she remembered Beth. ‘There is another problem to your plan, Seamus, and it is one I’ll not be swayed from. There is someone I would want to take with us . . .’
Seamus made little comment after hearing all about Beth; he seemed to know he would not be able to turn her mind on it. He only said, ‘Well, it will take some planning to get her out of there.’
‘Oh, Seamus, you agree to take her with us then?’
‘’Tis a complication, I cannot deny, but I can see you have your heart set. Do everything you can to get some money soon, Bridie. There are papers we will be needing, and they cost. And there is a passage to book. But tell no one, not even this Beth. Just tell her you are getting her out, and together we will sort out how to do so as we wait for the time of you collecting your money . . .’
‘Not my money – ’tis ours, for isn’t it that the biggest part of it belongs to you, Seamus?’
‘I cannot be at denying that. And the knowing of it helps, as I’d not like to think I’d taken it from you.’
‘I know you wouldn’t be doing that. And don’t be worrying about a plan to get Beth out, as the bank manager said he would be seeing to it. He said he’d ask around for a placement for her, then write to the nuns. Will we be having enough money for us all, do you think?’
‘Aye, there should be plenty, with enough left over to get us settled.’
‘So you won’t be going off on your travels and leave me, once we are there?’
‘I’ll never be for leaving you again, me little Bridie. If you will have me, I will take you for me bride. For as sure as God is in his Heaven, we were meant for each other. Don’t you feel it?’
‘I . . . I do, Seamus, and have always done so.’
When he took her in his arms, a yearning came over her. She couldn’t understand it, but her resolve never again to have that ‘thing’ happen to her melted, and more than anything she wanted to give herself to Seamus.
His voice rasped in his throat as he moved her away from him. ‘Not yet, me wee love. It is not honourable for a travelling man to take to himself the woman he wants as his wife before the vows have been said.’
‘Oh, Seamus, I love you. And I’ll be for doing everything I can to speed things along. Everything . . .’
11
Will
Liverpool, 1876
Decisions made
Will sipped the hot rum toddy his uncle had given him and listened to his tales of the sea. The spirit warmed his blood, but not as much as his encounter with Bridie O’Hara had done. He couldn’t understand the feelings surging through him. None of them fitted with the fact that he’d only seen her for a split moment, and touched her for even less. But he knew it compounded his problems with Florrie and her persistence in trying to make him help her.
As if reading his mind, his uncle said, ‘Now, Will, I can see that’s gone down well. Let’s hope it loosens your tongue, cos I’m of the mind as you have something troubling you. You know you can talk anything over with me. It often helps to share a worry. And as I see it, you need to start this New Year with a clean slate. God knows you had your troubles in the last one.’
With the relief that comes with unburdening a problem, Will told him about Florrie.
‘I see. Well, it looks like you’ve got yourself into a fix, lad. You know already you should have denied it the first time you heard your name mixed up with it. But it’s too late for “should have done”, so what are we going to do now?’
‘I don’t know, Uncle. I’ve done nothing but think it over, but I can’t come up with a solution. Even denying it at this late stage would put me in a bad light.’
‘Aye, as I see it, your silence has given this wench the opportunity to implicate you without even having to tell a lie. She must be a bitch to allow this to continue.’
‘No, she isn’t. I know that sounds daft, and a contradiction of how she is behaving, but her actions are driven by her desperation. She’s been wronged all her life.’ He told of how Florrie’s life had been and what she’d had to cope with.
‘Will, don’t you see? Even to me, you’re sounding like the likeliest candidate. You have sympathy for her, you won’t have owt said against her and you want to protect her. You are in this good and proper, lad.’
‘I know, but I have to get out of it. There’s . . .’ He nearly said there was someone else, but
that was ridiculous. But then, as sure as he sat here, he knew it wasn’t. For Bridie O’Hara had done something to him in the few moments she’d occupied his life. She’d affected his thinking. Got to him somehow. It was madness, but there it was.
‘There’s what: someone else? I mean, if there is, there’s your answer. You can bring her into the picture and . . .’
‘No, it isn’t like that. I don’t have anyone else. Oh, Uncle, it’s such a mess!’
‘Look, lad, if marrying this Florrie is out of the question, then you have two choices as I see it. Either you move away – I’ve told you, you can come and live here with me, and I’ve said as how I could do with your help – or you find the money and get her to this woman she’s on about. And, thinking about it, that’s probably why she is keeping this up. She’s blackmailing you into helping her get rid of it. Cos surely she can’t want to tie you into marriage, with her knowing you don’t love her?’
‘The first is no good. Like I told you when you offered afore, I can’t leave Ma. And the second – well, I ain’t saying I have nowt, but what we do have we’re going to need. I couldn’t ask Ma to let me dip into the pot at such a time, and I couldn’t tell her what it were for, either. It just seems hopeless and so unfair.’
‘There’s a lot about life as is unfair, lad. Look, I’ve a bit, and I’m not likely to need it, but I ain’t for thinking to use it to sort things out in the way as you say. I could do with someone taking care of things here for me. This is a big enough house to take Florrie in. You say as her ma treats her like dirt? Well, she could get out of her clutches by coming here. She can work as me housekeeper.’
‘But what about when the babby comes?’
‘That won’t bother me. She can keep it here – I’d like to see a young ’un about the place. But I have a solution, if she doesn’t want it . . .’
Will listened as his uncle told of a midwife he knew. When dealing with a young girl in trouble and unable to keep her babby, she made money for them both by selling the child on to someone who couldn’t have children. He didn’t ask how his uncle came to know about such a thing, but sat in silence for a moment, digesting everything he’d said. Something lifted in him. If only . . . ‘It all sounds good to me, Uncle, but what if Florrie won’t agree?’
