Dallas Sweetman

by Sebastian Barry

  All this knew Mrs Reddan.

  And was by that inspired?

  Music.

  How those babes lived even a year gives evidence of their natural fortitude. Starving them, hanging them upside down no doubt, when I was not there to thwart it, everything short of sticking them with knives, did not destroy them. By the age of two, they were beginning to harvest language, and those two women feared them now as gradual witnesses to their miseries.

  So – when these babes were about two years old, good Lucius went a-travelling. He was to be gone five weeks and more. Then to our story came added woe and woe, for the two women were like wolves in an element without humanity.

  The old estate of Lucius took in the town of Baltimore, a little place, with Sherkin Island across a narrow bay, a few cold houses there.

  And there was a strand that stretched for miles, all Lysaght land indeed, and quite deserted.

  And so a favourite place for pirates, sun-darkened Arabs from North African shores, who liked to dip along the edge of countries, and take off people, that they might be slaves in Araby.

  Every few years you heard the stories, girls in some seaboard farm took off by shadows, gaps made in families never filled. In greatest quiet, subtlety, and never an Arab seen, though some did say they saw a slinking ship put out past Sherkin on that boiling sea. And boys were sometimes took, and girls, and men and wives. And all to be put as slaves, to row, to toil, and worked till a last drop of physical element signalled death, unless those Christian souls were content to become Mohammedans, and put on new dresses in a marvellous land.

  Mrs Reddan’s measure of me had not improved.

  Mrs Reddan pushing the twins along slowly in a basket on a ‘pony’, the blow of the sea, seabirds. She seems to be keeping a lookout for something.

  Me she would not have near, though I was servant now in officio to the twins.

  My task was to put order on their lovely clothes, to keep their ponies and their carriages ready, and in all manners to guard them, against robbers and religions.

  Another man might have stood away and lazed, but I kept always near them.

  I was like those Arabs, as a shadow, and when she was walking with them, I crept along behind, and when she was talking to them, or barking or hissing sternly, I listened at the doors for fear of further harm. I bustled in at mealtimes, having seen what I saw, and she and her cousin were forced to give them food, while I lingered by.

  Strange things I noted. She had some tenderness of heart, in that if a child got an injury that she had not schemed, she petted and patted it. But she had no knowledge of children’s games or joy, as if she had travelled from a childless country, where such things were not known.

  But, being a watchful man, thus it was I saw what she did that day.

  It was a day of blowing sunshine, in the summer early, the beginning of sailing weather, that brought away merchants and brought merchants in.

  A swelling up of the scene behind.

  You would think in those recent weeks that the old strand was the special love of Mrs Reddan, for every day she brought the twins there alone, and walked austerely on the long shore path, the children bobbing in a basket on a moorland pony, a thing they loved above all else.

  I heard them laughing as was their way.

  I made sure to stay unseen, creeping along if needs must through briary hedges and the like.

  Then that sight I saw: Mrs Reddan stopped.

  All as he describes, as if it were the theatre of Dallas’s inner eye.

  There was a distant boat out on the water, with stooping sails, and I saw her view it.

  Even the back of her hatted head had cold intent.

  Whether she planned what followed I do not know. Had she made pact with barbarous men, those very men of Barbary itself, by some system of messages or communication?

  She glanced all about, then turned again towards the sea – did she hesitate? – and went with the pony halfway down the strand.

  Mrs Reddan puts the nosebag on the creature, and hobbles the back legs, and tucks the babes down firmer in their basket, as if with a mother’s wish to see them warm.

  Mrs Reddan (cupping her hands, blowing into them, so that she makes a noise like a hooting owl) Hoo, hoo!

  Dallas Then she looked about again, went down to the waves and strongly called, and called, hallooing like that witch the peasants say announce a family death, the foul banshee.

  She tends to the babies one last time, kisses her right hand and touches each baby with the hand.

  Then gaining the path again, she walked away.

  I stood in my covered place and wondered.

  I could not immediately understand.

  Mrs Reddan turned an angle of the beach and disappeared. I was fearful and puzzled.

  Out from the side of the distant boat pushed a smaller craft, and against the surfy waves began to row.

  Music. The pirates a presence in their black clothes.

  In my horror I fancied I saw in the breeze hooded vestments blowing like slack sails.

  I burst out of my cover and hared along the strand.

  Hardly thinking of any plan, I unharnessed the children who with childish words greeted my coming as a thing of ordinary joy.

  Then I stuck one under each arm and left pony and basket to their fates, and struggled back up the sand, hoping that no one saw.

  My chief thought was them, and Lucius too. I sensed the danger all around. The approaching pirates and Mrs Reddan’s evil wish.

  It would be two weeks before he returned, two dangerous, unknown weeks. She might do a worse thing. She might quickly banish me, and have the babes to her own devising.

  Her mighty word against my own!

  Once she had gone this far, she would have no further stop, unless I could outwit her.

  Now the pirates fading.

  I carried the babies back.

  Two-year-old babies are not feathers. They seem light at first, but step by step they gain in weight, till a man must be groaning.

  The colours of trees and undergrowth, the dark of a daylight wood. Music.

  But I scarcely felt it. I plunged into the ancient woods of oak and beech, a hundred acres they covered, against the winter storms. I snaked my way on through, under the gloom of the trees I planned my plan.

  The light clearing.

  At length I was at the old middens of the house. There was a little door, which the scraps-man used, and unlike the rest of the castle few went that way.

  I climbed up and up the mansion to the highest floor.

  That realm of serving maids was quiet in the day. I went further by a doorway that I knew, that could bring the carpenters and the slaters to the roof, whenever the rain came in.

  It was a town of attics. And in the deepest room, I set down the children – I must allow on the edge of fear, their eyes close to crying. But I let them bump about, and made it as a game, and soon they were not even glancing at me, but played as they used with intent and calm.

  Do not ask me how luck stayed with me. I went back down into the house and ransacked an unused room. I brought a poor maid’s bed upstairs and some goosedown peltings that I found. Then I made fast their door and crept down into the proper house to see what was afoot.

  Mrs Reddan walking about in distress.

  Mrs Reddan Oh, God, that I might undo this serious day. That I might drive back the sun into its bed from which it rose this morning, that I might put dark again upon the sea, and place back the little birds in their secret nests, and still the dawn wind, unwind it backward, make time regret its coming and go back!

  Dallas Mrs Reddan had raised the house. She was still there herself, calling and crying, issuing order upon order. I asked a fellow servant what was what. (To a passing woman.) You there, Johanna, what passes here?

  Servant Mrs Reddan was set upon as she walked on the strand. The babes have been taken by dark evil men. She herself is lucky to be alive. She has shown us all her scrat
ches and shed blood.

  Dallas (aside) I knew in my soul she had done all that with briars.

  Servant This is a tragic day, and the master away on his journey. What horrible news will await him, unless we can rescue those babes.

  Dallas Men were sent down to the sea and found the poor pony and its empty creel. No sign of those pirates on the leaping sea. No sign of the babes of Lucius. A terrible hue and cry.

  At the centre of all, Mrs Reddan, and a mill of activity around her, again like a dance.

  Now men were sent careening out on horseback to search the ways about.

  Mrs Reddan wept and tore her hair like a Grecian tragedian. All was utmost pandemonium, concatenation, and loudest of all her selving blame –

  Mrs Reddan I am the guilty one. Why did I not fight harder? Why did I shrink back in cowardly weakness? Oh, that I were wolf or man, not woman, weak and slight. My tender charges, two souls the same as life, my nesting birds, emblems of goodness, softness, love. Now Lucius will have me killed and well deserved. Oh, well deserved.

  She is comforted by her cousin and others.

  Dallas And on that occasion, the serving girls were allowed to comfort her.

  Sister You are lucky to be alive yourself, good Mrs Reddan. You must have fought like a demoness.

  Dallas Like a demoness was right.

  My thoughts were all Lucius. Let him just return. Let them think what they wanted for the nonce, it made no odds. Indeed, said I to myself, let the rumour of this thing penetrate to whatever region he now traversed.

  I fed the babes by childish morsels carefully fetched. Ten times in the day I checked them, and chased them about, playing that Monster game they loved.

  I bedded them in at night, then locked the door. They were too small to question and faithfully filled their pots with piss and such, which I ferried down to the midden like a mouse.

  I kept all a secret and shared my fear with none.

  Then Lucius’s return was nearer, near. Then he was home.

  Lucius returning in his travelling coat. The household to meet him.

  Oh, fearful scene. Yet I could not say my tale. Not for the moment.

  In the old hall stood Lucius, draped in dust, listening to Mrs Reddan with her hanging face. He listened and in his goodness made no sound.

  Mrs Reddan Dear Lucius, dear cousin closer to me than my heart. How can I say the hurting words? – The two babes are gone. Taken by pirates.

  Dallas Did his sorrowing mind for a moment think, now this cold streak of womanhood is my heir? I do not know. Her own dark mind must have, of course.

  Mrs Reddan falls to her knees and grips the legs of Lucius.

  Mrs Reddan I proffer my neck for death – let me be killed. Draw out your sword, and lift it high, and strike me with it. Let me not have mercy. Lucius, Lucius, murder me. It will be better than living with this murderous hurt and guilt.

  After a moment, Lucius stoops and helps her rise.

  Lucius stepped one step forward and held her arm. Gently he held it. I slipped away.

  Night came. I bided my time.

  He picks up the babies again. An enormous redness everywhere.

  I sat with my little ones under the roof. It was that fierce twilight of the west when somewhere in the ruckus of the world the sun plunges down.

  Then I took my charges, under each arm as before, and stole down though the grieving house.

  I left by the midden door and out into the oaks I went, like a very thief myself.

  Then by another path I came to the great frontals of the house, and calling out, I cried my joyful news! The children are safe, I called. The children are safe. Rejoice. O springing joy. Great commotion in the hall. Lucius fetched.

  Lucius comes and takes the children into his arms.

  Lucius Dallas, my servant, do you bring ghosts, do you bring spectres from my own aching dreams?

  Dallas No, my master, living hearts.

  (To us.) Such reckless tears and commendations and wild questions.

  Lucius How could it be? How are the babes not harmed, or starved?

  Dallas I do not know. I made one last pilgrimage to the wastes, by what instinct or prompting is unknown. And there I found, miraculously, the lost babes. They were lying in a nest of heather, neat and plump.

  Lucius Look, look, Mrs Reddan, it has all come good. Some great action of God has brought them home, unharmed.

  Mrs Reddan’s face.

  Oh, even in my acting, how I loved to see her face, the utter bewilderment that could look like the edge of joy.

  Mrs Reddan forces a smile, then utters a series of strange little shouts, then kisses the babies.

  My babes, laughing and smiling at these festive acts.

  What could she say?

  Mrs Reddan This is mystery. I wrestled with those pirates till the blood spurted from my arms. They tore them from my grip. They knocked me down. I saw them row away on the enamelled sea. It is so clear in my mind. How are they saved? I do not know, I do not know, but, praise God, praise God!

  Lucius This is a welcome and clear act of God. He looks down upon us and sees our pulsing need. He viewed me as a grieving father, whose own mere heart was breaking in the dark, whose bag of prayers was emptied, close to whose lips were curses against that God, may God forgive my lack of faith.

  Dallas Such did their infant peril pass.

  Now, Mrs Reddan more alone, as if a friend to us.

  Mrs Reddan Now I must talk to this.

  Please witness my solemn words.

  When I was a young girl I walked out of Belmullet to marry a man in Sligo. I went with a little retinue of my father’s servants, hoping not to be devoured on the way, because in that time there were always banditti lining the ways. I was very excited to be going to see my husband. He was the son of the Lord of Inniscrone, a very fine and civilised family. Of course there was not any real roads, our guides had just inklings and ‘I think it might be this way’ to go by. That was the way of things. We might have sailed from Belmullet to Sligo, except it was early spring, and the sea was just a great acreage of barns and castles – that is, those dark Atlantic waves.

  As we went up by Ballina under the mountains called there Nephin, my husband’s people came out to meet us, and guarded us all the way then to his door, with tremendous noise and colloquy.

  We were married for ten years before a depredating army of Elizabeth our Queen was sent into Connaught to harass my husband, leading to his terrible defeat under the mountain of Knocknarea. My husband, though exhausted from a long defence, would not yield on any ground, knowing full well all his lands were at stake, and his history in that fabled place, and died of a bursted heart. So I was obliged then to seek refuge with my cousin Lucius, who graciously and with the kindness of family, took me in. But this was a ferocious plummeting down from those heights I had attained. Yet I was grateful for that mercy.

  For many years then I attended to his children and sought to nourish them, knowing that a family thrives only by the progress of its progeny.

  I say all this to show you, I am a woman of good family. I am accused of treachery greater than any I have ever heard of. To work against the children of my husband. Not plausible, not possible, as in an old story, and not true.

  They disappeared it is true for some weeks, stolen I thought from the beach, and indeed I was in a fervour of despair. I saw no pirates, nor wrestled with them. It was shadows and monsters in Dallas Sweetman’s mind, or a great invention. I had never thought to harm them, only mourned their loss, and was overjoyed when he magicked their return. And why he thought to work that trick on me I do not know.

  Dallas Mrs Reddan having met this check on her plans, seemed to quieten in her malice, though persisted in her rationing of the children’s food, and kept them lean and crying.

  Mrs Reddan Lies are breeding lies, mother mouse brings forth her babies, it is most terrible.

  Dallas But Lucius in his lovely thanks became more watchful of them,
and maybe loved them better, and indeed made me protector of them in his own mind, and called me The Man of Miracles.

  Music, a few moments.

  Since I had scraps of Latin, and knew the history of the world, having once myself been well-to-do, but fallen now – my father had lost his portion at the tables of Dublin in a forgotten youth, and left us only with puzzles, hanging himself one Sunday morning from the yardarm of a wreck on Dollymount strand – since these things were so, Lucius chose me to school the children, and so I did.

  My faith was fine as his, though faith without a fortune can be dim. I imparted to them the Romish things we loved, the why and wherefore, and the dark sins of those that had followed a lusting King, in their arrogance and with oppressing deeds.

  I showed them the church in Baltimore out of whose yards we Catholics had been driven, though it was our own, with condemnations.

  How Lucinda beat her fists together, raging at my histories.

  Taught them to love their father, and to give thanks they had such wealth even history could not alter the altitude of the Lysaghts.

  And I taught them to count on fingers, and to sing, and country dances that they might dance, when they were grown, at Catholic gatherings of Old English types, where they might find husband for one and wife for the other.

  Music. Now two young children dance.

  (After a little.) And moment by moment, day by day, I grew to love them, and looked at all things that moved towards them with a fierce suspicion, and searched out all happenings for hidden violence, though I was in certain ways a stranger in Ireland – but a stranger, a mere Sassanach as the peasants say, may have love as deep as any.