The Nanny At Number 43

by Nicola Cassidy

  Anna Genevieve’s grandfather drank no more.

  He clutched the child until the Nanny returned and removed her from his arms to put her to bed.

  When she was gone, Mr. Winchester left his chair silently and walked from the room. When the door closed behind him, William and Mrs. Winchester looked at each other.

  “I’ve never seen him like this,” said William.

  “Grief does strange things to people.”

  “He loved her so.”

  “He did.”

  “We all did,” said William.

  Chapter 32

  Mrs. McHugh

  As the train raced along the tracks, the green fields speeding by, she realised it was a trip she should have made more often. It wasn’t too taxing of a journey really. The longest part was when she got off the train at the small one platform station at Kells and had to make her way to Susan’s farm, a distance of eleven miles.

  Catherine, her niece, was waiting when she stepped out into the warm breeze in the small station yard, her hands on the reins of the dappled pony they used for getting about. The sky clouded over as they pulled out of the station and made their way down the winding country roads towards the farm.

  She was glad Catherine had come. She enjoyed her niece’s company and they passed the time observing the weather and catching up on the various marital, birth and death situations of their neighbours.

  Catherine said they were glad that she was coming to visit.

  “Mam’s been worried about you. It’ll be a nice break for you on the farm for a while.”

  “Arrah, no need to be worrying about me,” said Mrs. McHugh, shrugging off the sentiment.

  “How long are you staying, Auntie Winnie?”

  “Oh, just tonight,” she said.

  Catherine looked surprised.

  “Ah, you’ll have to stay longer than that! Sure you’ve come this far.”

  “There’s something I need to attend to at home.”

  “Right you be,” said Catherine. She hoped her mother would be able to persuade her aunt otherwise.

  Susan welcomed her to the farm, coming out of the farmhouse and giving her a quick embrace.

  “Winnie, I knew you’d come to see us eventually.”

  They went inside for tea and brack, the fire smoky with turf. A large open grate centred the kitchen, knickknacks, bric-a-brac and candles littered the mantlepiece above it. Mrs McHugh smelled the distinct farm smell that had seeped into every piece of cloth and wood in the place. Manure, fresh and old, unpleasant and comforting.

  Susan was full of chat. It was nice to be in the cosy kitchen, with the comings and goings of Catherine’s children, getting the tea ready for the men coming in later.

  As they washed baking tins and scone trays, Susan said in a low voice so that no one could hear, “How are you faring, pet? Are you doing all right? You’re looking well, I must say. It can’t be easy on you. I was delighted to hear you were coming down, break up the week for you.”

  “I’m grand. I’m getting used to things. It’s lonely now, I have to say that. But I’m keeping myself busy. And the neighbours are good, I usually go down to them on Saturdays and Sundays.”

  “Ah, that’s good,” said Susan.

  “Actually,” said Mrs. McHugh, “when you get a chance, Susan, I need to talk to you about something. It’s why I’ve come down.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  Mrs. McHugh nodded.

  Susan wiped large suds off a small greasy bowl.

  “Is it about Christy?” she whispered, looking a little guilty now.

  “Can we go for a walk after tea?” said Mrs. McHugh.

  “Aye,” said Susan. “Aye, no bother at all.”

  The air was warm, but the sky was now black with clouds. They gathered in clumps, threatening rain and thunder too. The cows were out to pasture, lying down in anticipation of the rain, chomping their way through long thick grass, their jaws moving at an angle.

  They walked up the back fields, climbing an incline till they got to a vantage point, offering a sweeping view of the Boyne Valley. Mint, yellow and frog-green fields rolled in every direction, cut by dark, thorny hedges.

  It was good to be out in the country air, where the atmosphere felt different, the breeze awash with something nourishing, wholesome.

  Mrs. McHugh drew the air into her lungs, taking a long breath in and letting it out slowly.

  “Is he out?” she said, staring at the view, looking at the cows moving like miniatures now.

  “Christy?” said Susan. She felt her sister tense a little. “He is, he’s out. He’s living in Dublin.”

  “So you’re in contact then.”

  “We are.”

  “How long have you been in contact?”

  “Winnie ...” said her sister, looking across at her now. “What is this all about?”

  “What do you know about a girl called Margaret, Mad Maggie’s daughter?”

  “Who?” said Susan.

  “You heard me.”

  “Mad Maggie’s daughter?”

  “Do you know who I’m talking about?”

  Susan looked off into the distance and then back to her sister.

  “There was a girl, years ago, before he went inside. I know he’d been seeing her. She’d been in the workhouse. Is that her?”

  “A young girl?”

  “She was young at the time. He mentioned her to me the odd time but told me nothing much.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. The court case happened then and that was it really. But he did mention the name Maggie a few times in his letters. A friend of his.”

  “It’s the Nanny.”

  “What?”

  “The Nanny.”

  “What nanny?”

  “The whorin’ nanny at Number 43, the one who got me sacked, before Mick died!”

  “How – how could that be?”

  “She’d be the right age. And I’ve seen a picture of Mad Maggie, her mother. They’re identical.”

  “What has this got to do with Christy?”

  “What sort of contact were you in with him?”

  “Just the odd letter. Winnie, he’s my brother.”

  “He’s my brother too.”

  “I know, but ... I couldn’t leave him to rot in there.”

  “I could.”

  “I know you could. But ...”

  “But what?”

  “It was a mistake, Winnie. He made a mistake.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake, Susan. It was a plan. He planned to do that, in my house.”

  “I know that but ... ten years, Winnie. His life over.”

  “So, this is my fault then. I’m still to blame.”

  “I just don’t see why you’re so angry with me for writing to him. It was the Christian thing to do.”

  “Christian!” spat Winnie.

  Her cheeks had flushed now with anger. Over the years, Christy’s incarceration had punctured their get-togethers, rearing the same accusations, the same blame, against her. Only Mick had backed her in her decision to stand against her brother.

  “Did you tell him about Number 43?”

  Susan folded her arms. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you tell him about what was going on, that we were looking for a nanny?”

  “I might have done.”

  “Well, that’s it then. He told that woman about the position and, lo and behold, she arrived. This comes back to you, Susan. This is on you.”

  “How is it on me?”

  “They set me up for theft. I could have been jailed, for God’s sake!”

  Mrs. McHugh set off walking, taking great big strides through the grass. Her sister followed, urging her to wait, but she swung her arms, going faster. When she got to a gate, she didn’t open it, instead clambering over it with effort.

  “Will you be careful!” cried Susan.

  When they got near the house Mrs. McHugh turned and
looked at her sister.

  “I’ll stay tonight but I’m going first thing in the morning. I’m going to go and talk to Mr. Thomas, tell him what I know, that this woman has connections to my criminal brother and the theft case is all some big – some big act of revenge to get back at me.”

  “Winnie, this is ridiculous.”

  “Is it? I don’t know, Susan. I’m not the one in touch with our molesting brother. You’d be more aware of what he’s capable of than I would.”

  Back at the farmhouse, she swung open the front door into the kitchen. Susan’s husband, Catherine and her children all looked up, smiling, ready to welcome her for an evening of conversation around the fire.

  “I’ve come down with an awful headache,” she said. “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to go so sleep, it’s the only thing that cures it.”

  She went to bed, to the small back room they’d made up for her, the sheets a bit damp and smelling of turf.

  After a while, Susan came in with a hot-water bottle wrapped in a pillowcase.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

  “No, thank you, Susan,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m just not up to conversation tonight.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Both women were quiet for a minute.

  Susan broke the silence.

  “I’m sorry, Winnie. I never meant to do anything to upset you.”

  “I know that. But Christy’s dangerous. He has you all wrapped around his little finger – you just can’t see it. I needed to know. I needed to confirm there was a connection between the Nanny and him. I have that now.”

  Susan pursed her mouth. “I’m sorry for any part I’ve had to play in all of this.”

  “Arrah, it’s done now.”

  “Goodnight, Winnie.”

  The room was still lit by summer light. She tossed and turned, going over all the slights the Nanny had inflicted, the constant smirk on her face, the horrible knowledge that the woman knew all about her all along.

  That night her dreams were muddled, cursed, Christy and the Nanny’s grimacing faces all coming at her, up close and far away. Anna Genevieve appeared too, before Mad Maggie scooped her up and took her off, sending a wave of panic through her, jolting her from her wretched sleep. The hot-water bottle was cold at her feet.

  In the morning, she was tired, and she wanted to get home, back to her familiar surroundings, back to Drogheda.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Susan.

  “Well, I’ll have to go and speak to Mr. Thomas, won’t I?”

  “You could call to him at his office,” said Susan helpfully. “If you didn’t want to go to the house like.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” said Mrs. McHugh. “Aye, maybe that’s what I’ll do. He’s very fond of that woman though. It’ll be hard to make him see what I see. To explain, about Christy.”

  “Would you take the job back, if he offered it?”

  “I don’t know. Not with her there, certainly.”

  “Good luck, Winnie.”

  “Thank you, Susan. I’ll need it.”

  Chapter 33

  Christy

  It wasn’t his fault that the girls liked him. That’s the way they made it out in court, that it was his fault. But how could it be his fault? It wasn’t as though he’d chased them? It was them who came to him, wanting, looking for something, money, cigarettes.

  Young ones, on the streets. Paws out. When you got talking to them and got them smiling, well, what was the harm in that? Making them feel better, he was. Unless it was their first time of course. That usually shocked them a bit.

  And better him to be their first than some old pervert. You always remembered your first. He was kind to them, gentle, they appreciated that, so they did. Told him that, cuddling up to him, hugging him, asking him for a smoke, asking could he get them a jug of beer.

  He could get them anything. They loved that about him.

  Maggie had been a bit older than he liked. There was a nice age, before that, when they were old enough to know what was going on, but young enough still to be innocent. That was his favourite age. Maggie was well experienced when he met her. Still, she was regular, always around and he wasn’t going to say no.

  He was sorry the way it happened though, with the accident and her sister and that woman in his bed.

  That was shocking bad timing so it was.

  He felt real sorry about that.

  He’d got out the whiskey after the whore had left, drinking it till the bottle was dry, then headed out to the tavern at the top of the hill for more. When he awoke the next day, his tongue sandpapered, his head bouncing, he thought he’d need to stay away from her for a while.

  She’d be in the horrors now with her sister gone.

  He asked to change his shift at the workhouse and they took him off the runs there and put him onto the coal yard, which was a shocking dirty job, but he needed the space from Maggie.

  It was hard to explain, even to himself. He just wanted to forget about her. To let her off, have her find her own way, to get away from the drag of her, on at him about marrying and rescuing her from that place.

  In the evening times, when he passed by the back wall of the workhouse, he often looked at the stones, to see if they had moved, to see if they might even be moving right there and then before his eyes, Maggie and her dark hair popping out to say hello.

  But they never did. And she never came near him again.

  In time, he missed her.

  One day he was put back onto the workhouse run, to cover a shift and as he helped roll the drums in their carts into the back hall of the laundry, he asked one of the girls if Maggie was there.

  “She’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “She got a placement. In Wicklow. Ah, she’s gone a while now.”

  He couldn’t believe it. He shouldn’t have waited so long to try and see her.

  Maggie gone.

  “Do you know where?” he asked the girl.

  “No clue,” she said and shrugged her shoulders.

  There was nothing he could do, no way to reach out to her. He couldn’t march into the industrial office and demand an address.

  So, he tried to forget about her.

  Maggie and all her sorrows. Mad, just like her mother. He told himself he was better off without her.

  But she wouldn’t get out of his head.

  It was a mistake, a stupid mistake. He should never have let it happen. They never needed to go into the house at all. They could have gone to that laneway or stayed in the cart even. Going into the house was a mistake.

  He’d been with the young one a few times before. A skinny lass, quiet enough, a bit grubby, like they all were. She’d been brought up in the orphanage at Bolton Square, parents long dead from disease or poverty, something anyway that sent her there when she was only a tot.

  And like the rest of them, all she wanted was a bit of affection, a bit of love. She was a soft thing. But, Jesus, she was sweet.

  He was coming back from Collon, a haul of stones in the back of the cart. It was a favour for a fella he drank with – he shouldn’t even have been out that way, but he’d get a few drinks on account of it that night.

  There she was, walking up ahead, at the top of the North Road, her spindly legs sticking out of the skirt.

  That was the thing about the young girls. They were still in the short dresses.

  Her blonde hair flashed in the sun. He let the horse pull right up beside her. It startled her when it stopped.

  When she saw it was him, she smiled.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello to you,” he replied. “What brings you all the way out here then?”

  “Never you mind,” she said.

  He laughed. “Would you like a lift?”

  He helped her up to sit beside him, at the front of the cart.

  She was thin, her little wrists pure bone. She rested her palms on her knees, the sinews
clear in her hands.

  “Are you hungry?” he said.

  She looked at him, her eyes wide.

  She was always hungry.

  He could bring her back to his cottage the far side of town – he’d brought her there before. But there was nothing to eat there. He could take her to a café down the town or ...

  He saw the house up ahead near the top of the North Road.

  “I know just the place,” he said.

  He pulled the cart into the laneway behind the row of cottages, tying up the mare, patting her on the nose.

  He took the girl by the hand and led her past the whitewashed back walls of the houses.

  “Where are we going?” she asked in her sweet voice.

  “Somewhere that’s warm and has the best bread and jam you’ll ever have in your life.”

  He got to the cottage, the house he was raised in, the house where every brick was as familiar as the back of his hand and opened the back gate. He took the key from under a saucer on the window ledge, where it had been kept ever since he was a boy.

  “Oh, this is lovely,” said the girl, looking around at the kitchen that smelled of baking. The range was still stoked.

  “This is where I was born,” he told her. “My sister lives here now. With her husband.”

  “Oh,” she said. “It’s very nice. It’s much nicer than yours!”

  He smiled at her insult, which had no malice behind it. And it wasn’t untrue.

  He made her bread and jam and she ate it hungrily, licking her fingers when she was finished.

  “Would you like some more?”

  She nodded.

  “How about tea?”

  He put the kettle on to boil on the stove and looked around the house.

  Saint Winnie and her martyring ways.

  She’d done it on purpose, setting herself up in the house to look after their ailing mother. She knew what she was doing, pushing everyone out so that she was the only one caring for her.

  The house should have been his. All the others were off seeing the world, making their riches, and Susan over there in Kells with her rich farmer husband.

  Winnie got the house. And what did he get?