Story 5 of 8 May 1884
image credit to the internet
“Your Uncle John is coming up the lane to the house. And he has Cassie with him,” Bell, Thomas’s mother announced. Tight lipped she turned away from the half door where she had been throwing bits of scraps to the hens.
Mary made as if to go outside. “You may let them in, now that they’re here,” Bell said. Mary hesitated. She hadn’t seen John or any of her brothers or Cassie either since she’d married six months before. “It’s your house. I’m only a lodger and Thomas wouldn’t want them here,” she said in a low voice.
The news of Cassie’s behaviour at the chapel on the day of the wedding had spread like a gorse fire. It was the main talking point around the open hearths and the black iron ranges in every home in the townlands of the parish. With each telling of the story another bit was added on. One storyteller recounted that it was gospel true that it wasn’t the curate but the old parish priest who had conducted the marriage ceremony and in his confusion had married Thomas to Cassie first and then when Thomas insisted it was Mary he wanted to marry, he had married him to Mary as well. And that in horror the curate had reported the old man to the bishop and the old priest had been defrocked, sure as I’m sittin’ here, he always ended tapping his empty pipe on the fire grate.
“Go on, daughter, “let them in. Leave Thomas to me,” Bell said.
John was blinded for a minute as Mary drew back the lower half of the door and he stepped inside. from the bright May sunshine into the gloom of the small kitchen. Behind him Cassie tried not to breathe in as the hum of old age and the smell coming off the small pen in the corner of the kitchen where the hens slept at night caught the back of her throat. She gave a gasp when she looked at the state of Mary’s hair and clothes.
Mary was suddenly aware of the faded grey flowered wraparound pinny belonging to her mother- in- law, she was wearing. “Everything is washed and packed for the Boat to Glasgow tomorrow,” she stuttered looking down at her bare legs.
Cassie thrust a large vanity case towards her sister. “I’ve brought you this. It’s mine but you can use it for your personal things,” she said.
Bell threw her a look as she swung the iron kettle on to the hook over the open hearth. “That piece of fancy tartle will be no use to anybody here, “she snorted.
“Thomas has a wooden trunk he takes to the potatoes gathering,” Mary said hastily. “I’ve put my clothes and things in with his along with the pots and pans and cooking things we’ll need.”
With a slap Cassie cast the carpet bag on the earthen floor. “Then maybe you can use these for your hat,” she said thrusting a posy of May flowers at Mary.
Mary felt a hysterical laugh rising in her chest. She didn’t want to keep dwelling on what happened on her wedding day but she was busting to shout at Cassie that she had no need of a hat now. She never left the house except to go to the outhouse. She had been to mass only once since the day, Cassie dragged off her granny’s wedding dress and exposed her nakedness to Willie, the farm hand. Mary’s face burned with shame remembering what happened the following Sunday when she went to mass in Murlog. After mass, people, gathered in small clusters whispering and glancing at her. Mattie Mc Ginley‘s half grown son had stopped her and asked was she the woman who had married her sister’s husband.
Cassie proffered the flowers again. Their hands touched for a moment. Mary’s wind flew back to the days they would make a May altar and garlands of daisy chains. She forced down the tidal wave of tears that was rising in her. “I know Granda James is sick. I want to see him before I go to Scotland,” she said past the lump in her throat.
John moved uneasily. “Mammy sent you your things,” he said picking up the bag where Cassie had dumped it
”I don’t care about things. I want to see Granda James before I go away tomorrow,” Mary insisted.
John sank down wearily on the wooden settle beside the dresser. “Granda‘s mind is not…He doesn’t know any of us anymore. He wouldn’t know you even if you went to see him.” He paused and a nerved jumped in his cheek.” You can’t come to the house, Mary, not anymore.”
In the silence that fell John took stock of the kitchen. The settle he was sitting on acted as a bed for Old Bell. Along the dresser wall a wooden form acted as a seat for any of the neighbours who might drop in of a night. An open ladder led to a loft. That was probably where Mary and Thomas slept, he thought. Distracted, he drew his hand across his face. He knew only too well except for Bell kindness in taking in the newly married couple Mary would have ended going looking for work as a servant girl in the Lagan and Thomas would have had to go back to Scotland alone – separated even before their marriage began. And all because after the wild rumours started folk in the nearby townlands were frightened of the wrath of the new parish priest – fearful that they too might be thought to be ‘formicating’ in some way if they offer them a place to stay.
“It’s not much better than the Workhouse,” Bell said as if reading John’s thoughts. “But then me poor husband Patrick’s father, oul Peadar – god be good to him – wasn’t as well in with the landlords as your oul uncle James’ da was when it come to givin’ out the land to the Catholics,” she said dryly.
Without answering, and ignoring the barbed jibe, John rose to his feet. “We have to go Mary,” he said pushing Cassie towards the open door.
“Let me go. I have something to say to Mary,” Cassie protested.
“You have said more than enough already,” John said gritting his teeth and tightening his grip on Cassie’s arm. “If it wasn’t for you our mother wouldn’t be ashamed to have Mary, you and Thomas livin’ under the same roof.”
Cassie twisted out of his grip. “That’s not my fault. That’s Father Hughes the parish priest fault.” Wrenching free she turned to Mary. “I came to say I’m sorry for spoiling your wedding day.”
She waited expectantly.
Mary was silent.
When it was obvious Mary didn’t accept her apology two red spots appeared on Cassie’s cheeks.
“It’s partly your own fault. You knew Thomas had promised to marry me before he asked you,” she spat.
Mary heart started to beat faster. She could see Cassie was working herself up into a shouting fit.
“You didn’t think my Thomas was good enough for you,” Bell’s voice said from the shadow of the fire corner.
Cassie balled her fists. “That’s not the point! Mary should have refused him knowing he’d already asked me.” She turned angry eyes back on Mary. “You having to live here,” she said sweeping her arms wide to indicate Bell’s house, “is your own fault. If you had refused him then none of this would have happened…” Her words were cut off abruptly as John reached for her and dragged her out into the yard scattering the squawking hens in all directions.
“Look after yourself in Scotland,” he said over his shoulder as he hurried Cassie away.
Still holding the posy of May flowere Mary went back into the house.
“Not a word of sympathy for my poor Patrick dying. Or for poor old Father Callaghan either,” Bell said settling the pot of potatoes in the centre of the glowing turf fire
Mary climbed the ladder to the loft and lay down on the straw-filled mattress on the plank bed. Below, she could hear Bell talking to the hens. She knew she was lonely and lost without Patrick. Strange that, “she thought, how the old parish priest and Patrick both died in the Infirmary in Lifford at the same time on the same day.
But where Thomas’s father Patrick had a short run on a cart to a narrow piece of ground in Clonleigh graveyard, she mused, the old priest had pomp and ceremony and a burial tomb in the chapel grounds. The neighbours said it was the only funeral they had ever seen the curate look so happy. Mary wondered had the bishop already told Father Hughes, he was to be the new parish priest at Murlog?
She looked up to where she could see a sliver of blue sky through a gap in the thatch. Thomas had already did all he could for Bell; he had set the potatoes in the handkerchief sized piece of land to the side of the house and Bell had set in cabbage and peas in the patch along the gavel wall. But Mary wondered how Bell would manage once they were gone?
She began to think about her father. After a while she thought she could hear his voice inside her head saying.” Get up Mary. Thomas is a good hard-working man. He’ll do right by you in Scotland.” Resolutely, she rose from the bed. She would go and visit his grave and on the way, she would take the short cut across the makeshift wooden bridge and go and see Granda James.
She looked at her Sunday best coat and skirt hanging on a nail ready for to wear on the Scotch Boat they would take from the Port of Derry the next night. On impulse she searched out a soft felt hat and pinned the posy of May flowers to it and piled her hair inside it
Bella was teeming the potatoes when she saw Mary’s black booted legs appear down the ladder. “Don’t let Thomas eat all the potatoes,” Mary said. “I’ll not be long until I’m back.”
“Be back before its dark, “Bell called coming to the door, “That shortcut across the Deele River is treacherous in the dark at night.” Going back into the house she reached up to the dresser and took down the bottle of holy water. Making the sign of the cross, she went to the door again knowing where Mary was heading she took a fistful of the blessed water threw it after her.
“May God be with ye, child,” she murmured apprehensively.
Gemma Hill © 2020
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