Murder in an Orchard Cemetery

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Did you say diphtheria, Dr Scher?’ she enquired. Diphtheria was a worry. A terrible disease. In the foggy, marshy city of Cork, coughs and wheezes were widespread, but ever since the first epidemic which she had experienced among the poor children who came to her school, she had formed the habit of asking a child to open its mouth and say ‘Ah’ when they complained of feeling unwell. The sight of that thick grey membrane covering the throat and tonsils still had the power to make her heart stop for a few moments. She would have to harden her heart and send the sick child and its brothers and sisters home instantly in order to save the others. There would be little hope of saving the sick child; most would die, she knew, though she found the thought almost unbearable. The weak and the fortunate would succumb quickly to a high fever, but the stronger child would die in agony, choking as the membrane grew, strengthened, and eventually strangled the tonsils.

  She would have to get back to her own school instantly, she thought. She would have to talk to all the children and warn them of the danger. Tell them to keep to their own street and not to wander, especially towards the Douglas Street area. They were not too near to Douglas Street, she thought, and prayed that they might be saved, that strict rules about sneezing and coughing into a handkerchief were observed. Sister Bernadette and the other lay sisters were trained never to waste any old sheets or pillowcases. The novices used to cut them into handkerchiefs for children to use in school. They were collected in a basket at going home time and set to boil on top of the kitchen range. For a while, they used to hem them, but that was a useless waste of time, the Reverend Mother thought impatiently, as unhemmed handkerchiefs were just as useful and keen needlewomen among novices and nuns were set to work on turning salvageable, though threadbare, habits into skirts for little girls.

  But all the handkerchiefs in the world would not be enough to stop the deadly spread of diphtheria once it got into her school. Her eyes scanned the black-suited forms who moved around the sunlit ground. Where was the bishop when she needed him? She must instantly get back to her school, but she would have to see him first and make a pretence of getting his permission.

  ‘Have you seen the bishop, Brother Ignatius?’ she enquired as one of the Presentation Brothers drew near.

  ‘I think he is in church, Reverend Mother. I saw him and Mr O’Connor, the builder, go in there about fifteen minutes ago.’

  Better wait until he comes out, thought the Reverend Mother, though cynically she doubted whether bishop and builder were praying while they sat, side by side, within the dark privacy of the little church. Mr O’Connor had, she presumed, moved back into the position of prime favourite after the unfortunate demise of Mr Musgrave, the stockbroker. For a moment, she was diverted from her worries about diphtheria. Her own words about Macbeth, and about ambition, which she had spoken to Patrick, now came back to her. She looked across at the three other candidates who were wandering gloomily up and down the terrace. She doubted, also, that they were praying. How badly did they seek power? Not enough to increase the number of bodies in the orchard cemetery, she hoped. The bishop, by his obvious interference in profane matters, had perhaps stirred up a feeling of desperation in the mind of one of those four people. But was it conceivable that any one of them was responsible for the explosion that killed a man and blew his body into small particles? And if such a deed was possible to envisage, well, then who was the most likely to have done such a terrible deed? Her mind went over them as she surveyed the three who were, metaphorically speaking, left out in the cold.

  Pat Pius? Well, he cared enough to have given her a substantial bribe, so goodness knows what he might be willing to do for the bishop’s favour if he hadn’t felt that he was wasting his money, or that the bishop’s price would be too high for him to afford. That fifty or even a hundred pounds, which he might offer, would mean little to the bishop in comparison with a lifetime of favours from the wealthy builder or from the even more wealthy stockbroker.

  The same, she thought, could be said for Wee Willie, the Northern Ireland owner of a stocking factory. Small businessmen, both, both probably leading a hand-to-mouth existence.

  Nevertheless, when Macbeth murdered for the crown, the thought of obstacles, of Duncan’s sons, had not deterred him.

  Then there was the young lady. The Reverend Mother, with an impatient look at the church door, went across to the terrace and accosted Miss Maureen Hogan.

  ‘I feel as though I know you, as my former pupil Eileen has spoken with such admiration of you. I think you are a role model for her,’ she said with a friendly smile.

  Miss Hogan did not smile back. She looked sternly and coldly at the elderly woman and made no reply for a few seconds. Oh dear, thought the Reverend Mother. Someone who doesn’t like nuns. It was a pity, she thought, that despite the piety of some of the 1916 martyrs such a Padraig Pearse, that the later rebels tended to be very anti-religious and especially prejudiced against members of the holy orders. Nevertheless, she stood her ground. If you are going to be a successful solicitor, then you will have to learn how to hold an amiable conversation even with someone who doesn’t belong to your political organization, she said to herself as she bestowed the friendly smile upon the young lady. Well, if you are going to be rude, two can play at that game, she added to her internal dialogue and decided to enjoy herself by being outrageous.

  ‘What sort of hope do you have of becoming an alderman? I don’t suppose that you have much of a hope, have you?’ she asked affably, and her mind went back to sixty years earlier when she and her cousin Lucy used to giggle about their elderly and extraordinary old aunt with shrivelled skin and a waspish tongue, who would say the most outrageous things. She would, she decided, select Aunt Maud as a role model.

  ‘So kind of you to encourage me.’ The spirited reply came so promptly that the Reverend Mother was taken aback for a moment.

  Oh, well done! was her immediate reaction, but she contented herself with raising her eyebrows and waited with interest for a more detailed answer.

  It was a good policy. The young solicitor seemed to be waiting for a verbal reaction but when none came, she proceeded to explain herself.

  ‘Of course, it’s the ratepayers who vote, but who are the ratepayers?’ Without wating for an answer to that question, she proceeded, speaking with a fluency and a grasp of the monetary structure of their city which surprised and pleased the Reverend Mother as she listened to an explanation of how the rich were dependent upon the poor, that the factory owners would not be rich without the workers to slave for them, for very poor wages and even poorer conditions. The young solicitor had a good grasp on how the city was run and of the disproportion between the classes. What she lacked, thought the Reverend Mother, was any practical way of putting it right. She decided on a challenge.

  ‘How are you going to get the ratepayers to vote for you, if what you want to do is make them poorer and those without a vote slightly richer?’

  ‘It’s a terrible system. The fate of the city is in the hands of a small, ruling class.’ Miss Hogan raised her voice slightly and then lowered it as she noticed that the bishop was emerging from the church. The Reverend Mother noticed also, and was about to excuse herself and move towards the bishop when she saw that he had by no means finished his conversation with the builder. In fact, the two, skirting the ruins of the orchard cemetery, had moved further uphill towards the hedge that separated the garden from a view of the city.

  ‘Planning his new churches,’ said the girl with such a note of disdain that the Reverend Mother had to bite back a smile.

  ‘People like churches,’ she said mildly. It was true, she knew. The parish church near to her school was packed to the doors for every mass on Sundays and on saints’ days. It must, she often thought, be a peaceful and quiet time for these harassed mothers, and somehow, sitting in spacious, clean and colourful surroundings with nothing to do but join in prayers was probably a little oasis of pleasure in their hard-working stressful lives.


  ‘That’s because they have the mentality of slaves.’ The words were shot out in a most aggressive fashion with no pretence of politeness – not even using her name. The Reverend Mother wondered whether Eileen thought like this and was, perhaps, too polite to express such views in front of her erstwhile teacher.

  ‘Would you be able to do anything to make life better for them?’ the Reverend Mother asked, making her tone conversational and enquiring, rather than challenging.

  ‘I’d try,’ Maureen Hogan said after a moment.

  ‘How?’ That the young needed to be challenged was a doctrine of the Reverend Mother.

  ‘Raise the rates!’

  ‘You’d be voted down if you tried that,’ said the Reverend Mother sadly.

  The girl compressed her lips. ‘There might be ways and means, of getting people to vote on the right side – and these city council votes are not secret,’ she said. ‘If people can’t be persuaded by words, there are other ways.’

  ‘We’ve already had two wars during the last few years,’ said the Reverend Mother, though she guessed that the young lady meant intimidation. ‘Two wars,’ she continued, ‘and the poverty in this city is getting worse, not better.’ Her eyes were on Dr Scher who was coming back towards her with an irritated expression on his face. He had failed in his mission; she could see that. Like herself, he failed again and again, but he never gave up. Her companion’s eyes were on him also, but she tossed her head. ‘It’s time for the younger generation to take over, Reverend Mother. This city is run by West Britons, all these people who yearn for the past when they could pretend to be British, even though they were born and bred in Ireland. That man Musgrave, what did he want except for stocks and shares, like the railway stocks, to climb back to pre-1914 prices?’

  With that, Maureen Hogan tossed her head once more and walked off.

  ‘Any luck?’ asked the Reverend Mother, even though she knew from Dr Scher’s angry face that he had not succeeded. She gave him a moment to recover as she watched the young novices march to the gate, each laden with a bucket in one hand and a basket in the other. At least their journey to the city would be downhill and coming back up the steep slopes they would have empty buckets and empty baskets. She wondered what protection these aprons would give them and hoped that they would have some means of washing their hands after tending to the stricken diphtheria victims in their overcrowded filthy rooms. Dr Scher would, she guessed, know the risks even more than she did.

  ‘Stupid woman,’ he muttered and spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘I tried to tell her. Diphtheria is serious for the young and the delicate, I said. All right for an old man like myself. I know how to keep safe. Some of those girls are far too thin. They don’t make them fast in these convents, do they? Please tell me, Reverend Mother, that your god doesn’t impose such things as fasting on girls at a delicate age. They all look as if they need feeding up, especially that poor Musgrave child. She looks ill. I’d like to take her home and give her some beef tea and a few bars of chocolate and sit her in front of a cosy fire.’

  ‘You did your best, and none of us can do more,’ said the Reverend Mother consolingly. ‘As for God,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘I’ve long held the opinion that none of us really knows what He wants. After all, he is always being interpreted through man – even the gospels are just words written down by a few men who purported to have knowledge that they may not really have possessed. Don’t tell the bishop that I said that,’ she added in an effort to relieve the look of anxiety and strain upon her friend’s face. They had a series of private jokes about the bishop which she would trust to no one else.

  ‘I’m worried about this diphtheria,’ he said, ignoring her efforts to lighten his depression. ‘It seems to be a very bad strain. Is that Pat Pius over there?’ he exclaimed. ‘Mind if I call him over? Don’t want to talk about his private affairs in front of his fellow candidates.’

  Pat Pius came eagerly to the summons. He had a much-practised phrase upon his lips, but it died when he saw the doctor’s serious face. ‘Nothing wrong with Frankie, is there, doctor. The school didn’t call you, did they? He hasn’t had another attack, has he?’

  ‘Where does he go to school?’ Dr Scher was not going to waste any time.

  ‘Turners Cross, I moved him there as soon as you said that the Model School was bad for him being as it was so near to the river. What’s the matter? Has he had an asthma attack?’

  ‘There’s an outbreak of diphtheria in the Douglas Street area.’

  ‘Should I take him out of school?’ Pat Pius looked with trust at the doctor and the Reverend Mother saw with pity how the man’s face had gone white.

  ‘No, what would you do with him? That factory of yours is unhealthy for him with all the dust. And he’s too young to be left alone. He might be best off where he is.’

  ‘He slept at my sister’s place last night. She’s collecting him after school. She lives in Turners Cross. Oh my God, I don’t know what to do. Perhaps he shouldn’t be with other children. Perhaps she should keep him out of school, at home with her, but she won’t like that. Likes to go off selling vegetables at the market. What’ll I do, doctor? That last attack he had, I thought he’d die. He couldn’t get his breath.’

  ‘I’ve told you what to do. Get him out of this city. It’s a death trap for children like Frankie. Get him out of here. Sell off that factory of yours and take him to live by the sea. Be a fisherman or something like that.’

  Pat Pius said nothing but stumbled away. The Reverend Mother looked after him for a long moment while conscious that Dr Scher had shifted uneasily.

  ‘I know, I know, I shouldn’t have said that. The man is probably deep in debt for machinery and rent for that stupid factory of his. He’s tied to it. But I’m not a god, not a god of the Old Testament, nor of the New, don’t believe in religion, or even in gods, whether it’s the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or the god of Jesus and the bishop. I’m just a poor hack of a doctor who knows that children like Frankie are going to die, either of an asthma attack or of diphtheria, or of a hundred and one other diseases and illness before they are seven years old.’

  ‘He gave me a bribe, I can only describe it as such, though, of course, he cloaked it under the heading of a charitable donation,’ said the Reverend Mother in a low voice.

  ‘Did the same to me; told me that it would pay the fees of a few poor people who could not pay for themselves,’ said Dr Scher impatiently. ‘I told him to put his money back in his pocket and save it to take his son to the sea the next time that the asthma was bad. The money he was offering would have paid train fare and lodging for a few weeks somewhere like Youghal for the pair of them.’

  ‘I must confess that I took the money,’ said the Reverend Mother, feeling a certain amount of shame. ‘Perhaps, Dr Scher, despite your words, you have a better trust than I in the Almighty, that provision will be made for the poor.’

  ‘I’m less ambitious than you, I suppose. Not much is asked of me. The university pay me a good fee to teach those blockheads the elements of anatomy, the paying clients don’t mind a little extra on their bill when they are feeling better after an illness. I do well for myself, live in the lap of luxury, even if I do, from time to time, bestow a bottle of medicine and my valuable opinion, or stitch up a knife wound, for nothing. It doesn’t cost me much. I have my books, my collection of rare silver, my housekeeper to pamper me. No, I do little in comparison to you. I don’t go out looking for good works, just do a few good works from time to time when they arrive on my doorstep.’ Dr Scher paused a moment before saying, ‘Pat Pius has a little book, you know, one of those little notebooks for writing addresses in, and he has the names of what looked like all the ratepayers in the city written into it. He opened it at the letter S and I could see my name there and names like Sheehan, Sweeney, Slattery, and loads of others, and the amounts written beside them. Can’t spell, poor fellow, not too much education wasted upon him, just a drive to
make money and a good brain.’

  ‘And a warm heart,’ said the Reverend Mother. She thought that she would be haunted by the expression of terror on the man’s face when the danger to his little son became apparent. Pat Pius might not be educated himself, but he wanted the best for his son. Not too many fathers, in her experience, were so devoted. ‘How old is Frankie?’ she asked.

  ‘Just about seven,’ said Dr Scher. ‘Nice little fellow. Bright, too. Reads well. I got him a book, just spotted it in a shop, cost nothing much, a bit old fashioned now. Huckleberry Finn. I used to like it as a child, thought his father would read it to him, but he tackled it himself. Told me that he skipped the hard words, and the boring bits, but it was a great story. You should have seen the look of pride on his father’s face when I pretended to faint with astonishment. He’d do anything in the world for that boy.’

  ‘Including murder,’ said the Reverend Mother, her eyes on the ruins of the orchard cemetery and then, when he did not answer, she said, ‘Of course, we all delude ourselves; we justify our deeds with the phrase “it’s in a good cause”. I’m as guilty as anyone. When I present a tissue of lies in my accounts for the scrutiny of the bishop’s secretary, I use that phrase, telling myself, when burying the expenditure on buying sweets and cheap clothing for children and packets of tea for their mothers under the heading of educational supplies, that the cause justifies the lie.’