I was exhilarated by the vitality of my people when the sun shone and the sea was quiet and the crops were promising. This was the way life in Ireland ought to be all the time. Then we would not need pagan miracles or faction fights or revolutionary bands.
The Cardinal has accused me of undue optimism about the Irish people. Perhaps he was right, yet in the morning and early afternoon of the pattern I sensed the possibilities in our land.
As the day wore on, however, a certain manic mood crept over the celebration, like fog seeping in from the sea. Men’s voices were louder, curses and insults more elaborate, warning about what might happen if someone didn’t hold his tongue. More ominously, mothers chased their children home and followed them shortly after. Engaged couples slipped away, perhaps to visit the well and pray for marital happiness. The great rock, stark against the sky, seemed grimmer as the light of the sun moved west.
The faction fight was about to begin—the west end of the townland against the east end. For immemorial reasons these two groups of men, friends and coworkers all their lives, often even related by marriage, would summon up from the depths of twisted memories age-old grievances and, minds dulled by the poteen, decide that now was the time to settle all the old scores.
“You should be going now, Father,” the ubiquitous Branigan whispered in my ear. “You don’t want to be here when the fighting starts.”
“I do want to be here,” I replied. “I intend to stop it.”
“It won’t stop,” he insisted, “till the redcoats come and we may have a few surprises for them.”
As I had feared, the Ribbonmen were planning to take on the English army. They might kill a few lancers, but a squadron or perhaps even a regiment would descend on our edge of the world and work vengeance. Would the English be aware of the danger?
Two small groups of men, four or five in each perhaps, emerged from a tent. They screamed at one another and waved threatening clubs. This was how it began. I strode towards them.
“Stop it, you fools,” I am told I said. Then, it would seem a wild Celtic battle cry went up and scores of men poured out of the tents, ready to begin the battle. According to those who were watching in horror, I planted myself between the two converging mobs of drunken and angry men. I myself can remember only darkness. I think I wondered if this was what death was like. I did not have time even to think of an act of contrition.
Others assert that when I went down a hellish groan swept through both mobs.
“They’ve murdered the priest!” a woman cried out.
Murdering a priest in Ireland is counted to create the very worst of bad luck. Hence I was not surprised to learn that the men hesitated in a moment of blind horror, then scattered in all directions. Apparently I lay on the ground, blood streaming from my head.
Unlike Blucher at Waterloo, the redcoats arrived a few minutes too late, thank God. The pattern ground was deserted. The diminutive lieutenant recognized me and sent for the new doctor.
Later, much later or so it seemed, my head hurting as though a tree had fallen on it, I opened my eyes with great effort, then closed them again, dizzy because of the wavering shapes in what seemed to be my room. Apparently I was not quite dead yet. I forced my eyes open again. Milord Skeffington was watching me closely.
“Who am I, Dickie?”
“That’s easy,” I said, closing my eyes, “you are General the Lord Cornwallis.”
People laughed, relieved laughter I thought.
I opened my eyes again.
“Would you identify the other people in this room?”
“Don’t you know who they are?”
“I want to see if you know who they are?”
“Of course I do!”
“Then tell me their names.”
“Liam Conroy, schoolteacher; Jarlath McGrath, retired medical doctor; a man in an elaborate police uniform whom I do not know; Mrs. O’Flynn, housekeeper; Eileen O’Flynn, student; Her Ladyship the Honorable Mary Margaret Skeffington … I do not understand why the three women are weeping … Now I have a very bad headache and I’m going back to sleep.”
They told me that I had to stay awake lest I slip back into the coma.
I don’t really recall that absurd scene. I cannot believe that I spoke so absurdly. However, the others insist that I had acted like a comedian. If I did, I am ashamed of my levity.
The policeman, some sort of senior official from Belfast, informed me that by breaking up the faction fight I had disrupted the plans of the Ribbonmen and prevented a bloody battle with English troops. He seemed unhappy that I had frustrated the opportunity to kill a few score Irish Catholics.
“I saw a lot of brave folly in the Khyber,” Bobby Skeffington said later. “Yours is the mark of a man who doesn’t care whether he lived or died.”
I think I replied that I really didn’t care.
“There’ll be no more faction fights,” Mrs. O’Flynn had said confidently. She was right. In Ireland there’s nothing like the fear of bad luck to curtail violence.
October 21, Feast of St. Mel.
“His Lordship the Bishop will be coming to visit us the day after tomorrow,” I had said to Mrs. O’Flynn yesterday.
“What will he be wanting?” she had said in a tone of voice which implied that “no good will come from that.”
“He’ll be wanting dinner,” I said. “About half one, I should imagine.”
There was no point in telling her that this particular bishop was an insufferably fussy man and that he was coming to complain. I was not particularly afraid of him. If he removed me, he would have to find another priest to assume this benefice which would not be easy and he would have to explain to the Cardinal why he had done so. He would fear that the Cardinal might take it as a personal offense that he had removed one of his priests and thus presented the Cardinal with another problem. It was always difficult to predict His Eminence’s reactions. He might be delighted to have his own judgment about me confirmed or he might be furious that this foolish little man had dared to dismiss me. Hence Milord Bishop would do nothing but be unpleasant.
The bishop arrived at one o’clock today in the midst of a particularly nasty Atlantic rainstorm.
“Well, Father Lonigan,” he greeted me at the door, implying that it was my fault that he had to drive across half the county in such terrible weather.
My groom took his buggy around to the back and I conducted him into the parlor and offered him a glass of sherry or claret. He declined.
We sat in opposite chairs in front of the fireplace, in which a warm fire burned. It did not improve his disposition.
“I see you’ve improved the house,” he began the charges against me.
“I’d say rather that I made it habitable,” I replied, determined not to give an inch.
“It was good enough for the old Canon.”
“It was cold and drafty. The roof would be leaking above your head if I had not made the changes.”
“Hmnn … I suppose you paid for it out of parish funds.”
“There are very little in the way of parish funds, milord. I take no money from them. As you know I have an income from my late parents.”
“Hmnn … And you discharged the Canon’s housekeeper.”
“Rather I pensioned her off with the same salary she received from the Canon, which wasn’t very much. She was slovenly and resisted my attempts to keep the house decently warm. She also destroyed perfectly good food with her cooking.”
“Hmnn … I hear you got yourself in trouble protecting some redcoats.”
“I’d rather say I ended a faction fight before the lancers arrived. I hope there will be no more such fights.”
Mrs. O’Flynn invited us to the table.
The bishop raised an eyebrow.
“The woman is attractive, isn’t she?”
“If you say so, milord.”
He blushed as though I had caught him in an indecency.
Mrs. O’Flynn, like her daughter, had b
enefited from eating decent meals. Color had returned to her face. She was no longer scrawny. I noticed for the first time that she was indeed attractive. Very attractive.
“I suppose she lives here in the house?”
“Please, milord, I may be a fool, but I am not that big a fool. She and her daughter live in the small domicile behind the parish house. I improved that when I improved this place.”
“Hmnn … People will talk, you know.”
I despised myself for playing his silly little game.
“She was destitute, milord, driven out of her own home by her husband’s family after he died—and without repaying her dowry. And she is, as I’m sure you’ve noted, an excellent cook.”
“Hmnn … It might not be prudent, Father Lonigan.”
“I judge it to be prudent, milord. I will not discharge her. If you wish do to so, you may, of course.”
There was no chance of the old fool doing that.
“Have you been able to see to the school matter?”
He had heard all the vicious stories. He had not heard about my triumph with the school.
“Milord Skeffington has seen fit to appoint a young scholar who is Catholic and who has Irish as well as English.”
“Hmnn … You must be careful not to offend Lord Skeffington, Father Lonigan. He is very highly regarded by Dublin Castle, you know.”
“That matters not to me, Your Lordship. He is a cultivated and civilized gentleman.”
“He has received their highest decoration, you know, the Victoria Cross.”
“I did not in fact know that. Neither he nor his wife mentioned it to me.”
“He is a Protestant.”
I was to receive no credit for my friendship with the lord of the Big House. Rather it was to be an occasion for another warning.
“I believe all in his class are, milord.”
Mrs. O’Flynn removed the remnants of her sumptuous beef stew and replaced them with apple crust and heavy cream.
“Hmnn … Now what’s this about his wife bathing in the so-called Holy Well of St. Colm?”
He had heard that, had he now?
“I was told after the fact about that event, Your Lordship. I was not present at it. I accept that the reports are true.”
“You did not try to prevent it?”
“How was I to prevent it when I did not know that it was to happen?”
“You certainly did not permit it to pass unnoticed, did you, Father Lonigan?”
“As you observed earlier, milord, they are not of our faith. I hardly thought it was my place to denounce Lady Mary Margaret.”
“Hmnn … You tolerate the Holy Well, however?”
“I am growing weary of this catechesis, Your Lordship … I have repeatedly denounced all the superstitions that are rampant in this place and were tolerated without complaint by my sainted predecessor. I have prevented some of the abuses of both the wakes and the patterns. If I could drain the water out of the well, I would do that too. Unfortunately it is not a well but a spring.”
“Now, Father,” he said, in a mollifying tone, “I am only counseling you to prudence.”
“No, milord, you are accusing me of imprudence on the basis of falsehoods which you apparently believe. You can repeat all of them to the Cardinal if you wish. I cannot promise you that he will be pleased with you to hear them. Remove me if you dare, but I will not tolerate any further defamation.”
I was the son of a Dublin lawyer, educated at Salamanca, adroit and articulate. He was the son of a poor farmer, educated, if you want to call it that, at Maynooth. He was no match for me. I knew I would feel guilty when he left.
“I notice you have brought a piano with you,” he said more mildly. “I wonder that it survives in the dampness.”
“I tune it often.”
“You have much time to play it?”
“For a half hour each day before tea.”
“You surely do not have much of an audience at that hour.”
Did he know about Eileen O’Flynn and her band?
“God and the angels may listen if they wish.”
We chatted somewhat more amiably about the weather and politics. He believed that the English government would eventually grant us home rule. I argued that we would have to take it. He gave me his blessing at the door and wished me well. He did not shake hands. The sun had appeared. I wished him a safe and dry journey home.
He did not urge me to prudence.
“Was it a good meeting, Your Reverence?” Mrs. O’FLynn asked me.
“Despite your wonderful beef stew and apple crust, Mrs. O’Flynn, I don’t think we’ll see him again.”
I walked over to the church to ask God on my knees for forgiveness. I had treated the poor old man contemptuously. He may have deserved it, but that was not for me to say. Mrs. O’Flynn told me this morning that it is noised about among the women of the townland that Lady Skeffington is with child. I nodded approval and observed that it was very good news indeed. It would not be appropriate to send my congratulations to the Big House. I would wait till His Lordship informed me.
When Mrs. O’Flynn had left my study, I could no longer contain my laughter. God or St. Colm or someone had a sense of humor. Nonetheless, I would denounce superstition at Mass the coming Sunday.
Outside the rain continued to fall. The massive rock was shrouded by low clouds. The stench of salt water and dead fish was, if anything, more pungent than usual.
8
I PUT aside Father Lonigan’s journal. He was a bit of a wild man, a spiritual descendent of the warrior priests of the early middle ages. He’d die fighting. Yet he was sensitive and perceptive. He had made that horrible place in those horrible times come vividly alive. I was surprised when I looked out the window to see that after the morning rain our warm sunny Chicago spring was still alive.
A cab pulled up in front of our house. My wife and younger daughter emerged, the latter squirming in the former’s arms. Nuala put Socra Marie on the ground as she paid the driver. Both were dressed in spring light blue, Nuala in a summer suit with a matching blue ribbon in her hair, the Tiny Terrorist in a dress and similar ribbon. Even Dolly wore blue. As soon as her feet hit the sidewalk, Socra Marie dashed down the street, doubtless in search of her playmate Katiesue down the block. Nuala snatched her up again.
Two beautiful women, I thought to myself. I’ll spend the rest of my life taking care of them.
MORE LIKELY THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
I walked down the stairs to assist in the task of dragging our little ball of energy into the house, though it was indeed a day for outside play.
“Da! Da! Da!” she shouted as I walked down the stairs, reaching out her arms to shift from her mother’s responsibility to mine.
Nuala smiled with relief.
“Da! Socra Marie good girl!”
“I’m not surprised,” I lied.
“Awesomely good,” her mother told me, “weren’t you, dear?”
“Awesome good, Da. Lady give cookies …”
“With raisins, I bet.”
“Madame say Socra Marie pretty!”
“Naturally,” I said, holding the door for Nuala Anne.
“Give candy!”
“She’s found out that being a good little girl is a way to manipulate people,” I said to her mother. “She’ll be another Nelliecoyne in a few weeks.”
“Och, Dermot Michael, wouldn’t that be brilliant? I wouldn’t count on it, though. Still wasn’t she sweet today, on her very best behavior?”
“Socra Marie take nap now!” Our well-behaved Tiny Terrorist yawned. “Real tired.”
She gave me her glasses, a sign that the waking world had lost all its interest.
“I’ll put her down,” I volunteered, “then we’ll talk about what I learned today.”
When the Mick was two, he hated the afternoon nap even though he was so tired that he was sobbing hysterically. Give the little devil her due: she was sound asleep by the time we got t
o the bedroom.
“I worry about that,” Nuala said as I entered her study, the designated site for our serious conversations, designated by her of course. “Doesn’t she sleep too much altogether?”
She had kicked off her shoes and relaxed in her favorite easy chair, to be occupied only when she had earned the right to relax, which wasn’t very often. She had even opened the top button of her jacket, a certain sign that she was satisfied with her efforts.
“She earned her nap by virtue of the tremendous effort to be a good girl all day.”
“She was that.” Nuala permitted herself a yawn. “Madame absolutely adored her.”
“And wasn’t angry at you?”
“She cried she was so happy to see us, and meself feeling guilty that I hadn’t talked to her in months … weren’t you right again, Dermot Michael?”
We were back to the theme that I was the perfect husband. What was going on!
“What’s her verdict?”
“Won’t I have to go down there three days a week in addition to practicing at home?”
“Till when?”
“Till July, of course, Dermot love, if I’m going to sing on that mall place in Washington, that is if you don’t mind?”
“You’re singing at the Fourth of July concert? I haven’t heard about that.”
“You just did,” she said. “And meself calling me agent to tell him that we’d decided that we could do it.”
“And what are we going to sing for the whole nation?”
“I thought we might try those Aaron Copland arrangements of American songs. I know men do them every year for your Independence Day. Would it be a grand change for a soprano to sing about the dying cowboy on the streets of Laredo?”
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