by Kalyan Ray
1846
As I lie here dying, I think in this dark of my life and its impulses. It is, although few would guess, my mad whims that have ruled me altogether. To hide them under a strong gait, a face that holds its smiles in abeyance until I am alone: These have been my disguises. But here comes Death, this untimely visitor who touches my fingers, then my blue-black wrist, ruffles my life’s blood flow, and pulls me down by my strong and impulsive right hand. He takes me in hand and refuses to let go. I wish he would hurry.
All my life I have raged against the slowness of things, how matters unfold little by little. I used to want my little Padraig to be a man soon after he was born. I wanted to speak to him, woman to man, by passing all the slow seasons of childhood. Perhaps that is why I have spoken to him as a sensible man even as a child, and now he is gone. Impulsive mother, impulsive son. Where is he on earth today, if he is among us at all? As I lie in my feverish bed, I wonder if he will come sit by me and hold my hand, the one Death has left whole, not the one in which the veins are swollen channels and my nails undercrusted by the angry coral of corruption. Yes, yes, I do want my wandering son, or his wandering shade, to come and sit by me as I go from this place to no country, so that I can tell him how my impulsiveness brought him into this world.
I had been the much-adored Maire Finnegan, my father’s daughter, whose ma had died of sudden fever when I was only three. I could do no wrong, Jock and Georgie’s sister, at whom no one looked with anything but joy. When my da would go off to sea with my brothers, and they were gone for days, and I growing and watching by the sea, my father decided to have me learnt and sent me up to the village with old Mrs. Byrne the widow. Three children on our lane used to go daily to school at young Mr. O’Flaherty’s. One day I went with them out of curiosity, and after the first time itself, when I heard a bit of the tale of sad Isolde and the ill-fated Tristan, I came back and told my da that I could not miss even a day of such stories. I was that swayed and seized by all these tales of King Mark, Queen Grania, the lost men of the glens, the dying Diarmuid, that I was beside myself with the hearing of all the tales. When I read, the voice of young Mr. O’Flaherty seemed to tell the tales in my head. That has not changed at all. Even in these hours of pounding fever and in the sure knowledge of my grief I recall them, drifting unmoored upon my mind.
The storms of 1811 brought great wrack upon the fisherfolk throughout the region, Galway, the Arans, Sligo Bay, and even through Donegal and Connemara. Who would care to count the boats gone, and the bodies of fathers and brothers washing ashore after days so battered by the cruel sea that they were identified by the knit and pattern of their sturdy sweaters. It made the world of difference to me, and I was left an orphan, all of fifteen, with nowhere to go but old Mrs. Byrne, who used to be given by my da fish and coins for my keep, while I scampered to school all those years, and slept on her spare bed.
Now with my da gone and both my brothers, I noticed the eyes of some villagers grow crooked, and the world a-changing. ’Twas over Easter, I remember well, and no one at school for all the churchy week—when I got it into my head to run up to Mr. O’Flaherty’s. I was hot and sweaty when I got there, but he was gone, perchance to church and a day in Sligo Town, and all the decorated shops on Wine Street, or among the folks taking the air by the quayside here at Mullaghmore itself with the brave ships and their pennants of all colours.
I threw off my smock and dress and splashed the cool water from his cistern behind the cottage. I had the water streaming down my face and shut my eyes and poured some more, in the delight of that coolness and the red sun filling my world behind my shut eyes with a glow of pleasure. Then it was that I heard him. I burn to think how long he had seen me, for he seemed rooted like a tree, my bosom wet and bare, and my paps pink and goose-pimpled. Then, impulsively I did another thing. I shut my eyes and poured the water again over my head and face, my bosom hard and shaking, and even with that cool water I felt a throb in me that was not at my heart at all. When I opened my eyes, my hands, these very hands, were quiet by my side, my red hair wet and trailing over my face. I stood, now with my palms shielding my breasts, but he was gone.
I stayed back for the whole afternoon, waiting. I would have just sat by him, I swear by sweet Jesus and St. Patrick and my poor gone da, I would have listened to his tales and looked for nothing more.
In all the years, we never once spoke of this, and he that shy.
Within months, it had become clear that I was a growing burden to Mrs. Byrne, and she, crabby and crotchety, complained I ate so much. Yet all her chores, her garden and potato patch I took care of single-handed, and all that cheerily done. I have never made a fuss of work. But one day, she said that I had eaten more praties than I was due, and I, in such a blind glaring anger, instead of saying the harsh word which rattled in my head and curse her and her ratty pigtail of grey, I stomped down to the harbour and thought to walk off my ire and see my schoolfellows besides. Many of the fisherfolk who came in from the sea would hail me, for I was their dead mate’s daughter, and give me fish and warm words besides. All these, the fish and good cheer, I had been wont to take back to that harridan Byrne, but I was that angry I did not want to return in the afternoon.
A fine ship had hoved into the harbour, with a show of white sails and shiny bows. A great family, I thought, had arrived. But no, it was a lady’s maid that had come to set up her house before the lady arrived—and her fine china and new gowns had come in the ship, which a month or so later, would likely sail away, back to rich England. The lady’s maid was a red-faced large woman, smiling and squinting in the sun, and friendly-like. The boxes were unloaded on the quay and she did much counting, got muddled and counted yet again. She had to go back into the ship and make sure that all had been unloaded, bandboxes, sea-chests, and all. Why she did not have a written tally, I did not know, but she was that flustered and riddled by the count.
She saw me watching and asked my name. “Miss Finnegan,” I said, as I had read in books. I did not say, “I’m the Finnegans’ Maire.”
She said, please Miss Finnegan, could you watch over these here bandboxes and mirror stands while I check the ship and its nooks once more. She was sure she had forgotten the new inkstand and the writing papers, and the card table, and the decanter, and the opera glasses and on and on—for her ladyship liked to watch the sea from her house, and Ben Bulben—and the new cards and the bedroom slippers and . . . By this time, as the list grew, I laughed in jollity and said, “Why, I will keep both eyes on these, Missus.”
She rushed off and came back with a number of things, and then exclaimed, “M’lady’s snuffbox! I was carrying it so carefully in my hand, I declare.” I noticed a small ornamental thing, a wee column scarcely bigger than a child’s thumb, prettily inlaid with shiny mother-of-pearl and some dainty green stone. I picked it up from under the fringe of her skirt where it had fallen and handed it to her.
“Would this be what you are looking for?”
“Why, bless you, girl, that’s what it is. What a trouble if I could not find it, for our ladyship, that is, Lady Temple’s sister—she who took care of our young Master Henry after his mother died—she is very fond of her snuff and gin and cards. So thank you, Miss Finnegan.”
Then a thought struck her, and she hummed and hawed. Well, I am a straight and direct one, as my da would say. I was sore vexed with Mrs. Byrne, and it would surely be an adventure, so I said, “Will her ladyship be wanting a maid to help you while you are here?”
“Why, yes indeed,” Mrs. Hester Bunthorne said, for that was her name, though her ladyship called her Hetty. “However did you guess? That is exactly what she told me to do and I was worried, for I am from their house in Herefordshire and know nothing at all of this land and its ways.”
“I am your girl then,” I said simply, “You’ll just need to teach me what to do and when.”
I was told by the relieved Mrs. Bunthorne that her ladyship, the dead Lady Temple’s sister, would arriv
e in a few days from the great house at Boyle where she was staying with her friend, some great lady or other, and she would be the one to say the final aye—but that I could come right away.
So I scampered off to the fisherfolk and told Timmy Doherty to send word to Mrs. Byrne that I was off to the big house, and she should keep all her praties to herself and the tending of the potato patch to boot, and went off with Mrs. Bunthorne directly. Timmy Doherty did that, and was all a-blush that I had chosen him as messenger, and on his own brought all my stuff in my box to the English house.
Her ladyship came a week later and took to bed with her two furry lapdogs, her bottle of gin, and her cold that she’d brought along from the high folks she was staying with. She let me stay on as maid, as absentmindedly as if she had agreed to have another pinch of her snuff or a sip of gin. In a few days she was better, and though a little snivelly—I saw her blow her nose in the sleeve of her dress when she thought nobody was noticing—she ate well enough. Then she wandered about the newly aired home. With all the white dust covers off, the furniture gleamed after the fine hard work by Mrs. Bunthorne and me. But I could see her ladyship was bored. And just as suddenly as she had come, she was going to depart—with Mrs. Bunthorne and Mr. Arkwright, the bailiff, in tow—back again to that great house at Boyle in the heart of Rockingham Estate. I suppose this was the way of high folk.
I was to stay employed for the time being. Mrs. Byrne had sent three messages through stammering Timmy Doherty that she was sore sorry and wished me back. I ignored her completely. I was enjoying all the space and novelty, and I had just met the gamekeeper, a dark, unsmiling Jemmy Aherne, who was that handsome in a strong, rough way that it made me shake. I let him kiss me once. It was my first kiss. What an awkward thing it was! I had wondered about it for all my girlhood years and then it happened. He gripped me so hard, and his tooth hurt my lip, and it was over. He asked me if I would marry him. I said, I was sure I did not know.
At this time her ladyship and Mrs. Bunthorne had left, saying they might be back in a few days, and if any gentlemen came, they were to be sent on to Boyle. Aye, I curtsied, and they were gone. I was just about the mistress of the place except for the old fool, the gardener, Mr. Scully, who was deaf as a post, and would bring me fine vegetables everyday from the garden. He would leave these and the milk at the kitchen door in the back for he never would enter the house.
The next time I went to church on Sunday, Father Conlon called me aside and said, Jemmy Aherne was from the south near Cork, and a good lad, and he was glad that he had agreed to marry a fatherless lass like me with not a farthing to my name. I bridled at this, but could not retort, for Father Conlon bustled off about some matter with the vestments and the new censer, and I returned to the English house in a fury.
When I was going up from the kitchen to my room, Jemmy Aherne came in from behind and grabbed my waist, and I gave him such a sharp fist that it chipped his tooth and crimpled my knuckle.
“I am of the Finnegans, not a sack of potatoes you reach for whenever you please.” He was right startled.
“I thought,” he mumbled, his good looks fumbling and awkward before my flashing anger. Then he added, “I am going with my gun out for some weeks now to keep the poachers off, way near the Ben and thereabouts,” trying to impress me.
“What’s that to me?” I retorted and stamped off, and as I turned the corner, I could see he was crestfallen. I knew I would make up, but give it a day or two!
“Are you not my girl?” he called angrily after me.
“What if I am? I don’t know if you are my man,” I fumed. He was handsome, but I wanted to laugh and not be in a temper and frown. Oh, I wanted to be in love, and sweetly wooed. But he gnashed his teeth and was gone before I could smile at him.
• • •
THE CLOUDS HAD been gathering and going away and gathering again, and a strange wind had blown off Ben Bulben that next afternoon as it veered between sun and cloud. I needed to wash all the bedclothes and air them, but was of two minds, in case it rained. I thought, let me get it done, for I cannot abide not doing something and being idle. Oh, I should have—for there were books a-plenty. I had already dusted them and found some I wanted to read. Mrs. Bunthorne was amazed I could read with ease, and write to boot, thanks to Mr. O’Flaherty. But I washed all the bedclothes and hung them out to dry on the terrace at the back, away from the sea. The winds rose and the sheets were like sails in a storm, pulling and billowing at the clothes-hooks, some threatening to fly away.
I think of that wild day of wind and shadows and racing clouds, and my airy girlish mood, and what a great difference that day made in all my life. Where is that carefree girl now? Oh, I long for my sweet son, who came into my life and stepped so casually away, and all my life over so suddenly and everything passed so soon, and my little Maeve to be alone in this wide world. I feel death in my veins today. But on that day, among the flapping white wings of the blankets, I felt I could fly, I danced on tripping steps, and twirled about alone on that terrace, my eyes half closed and dreamy, and into the arms of a laughing merry stranger, who, holding me, danced and danced into my white flying fantasies, as if he had grown out of them and would vanish when the wayward winds grew still.
All he would ever say was that his name was Henry as he entered into the exact spirit of my carefree dance, and moved among the billowing sheets, just touching my palm, or my cheek, and moving away, letting me dance, strangely unsurprised by the magic, and his presence not intruding but letting me spread my wings. When the wind stilled for a moment, and the sheets stood like curtain after curtain in a white room, he kissed me on my mouth, and I was lost. I felt the winds whirling around me, madly blowing in great oceanic billows, but when we parted after the long moment I was entranced to see the curtains stilled, and his palm cupping my beating heart, I sought his mouth, and he sought what I thought was my soul itself. On the white sheets, surrounded and overhung by them, I was his, above and under him, entwined and astride him, in an embrace that was never like any earthly embrace before.
Why do I recall everything, in such ruinous detail, every kiss and surrender, sigh and shudder, ungirding and moan, when I cannot to this day recall when the sun withdrew, night unfurled, the light of the stars overhead, and late morning when my sweet awakening came, and how all that time had slipped past our closed door? In a dream I went down to the kitchen and cooked eggs, a great number. He came and held me fast from behind, as I held one last brown egg in my palm, admiring its shape, its fullness and fragility, his palm about mine, and it had a strange meaning. His other palm folded over my heart, and time went fugitive again. I stood, naked as Eve on the cool flagstone of the kitchen, marked with flour, and the honey that he had poured on and licked from me. The cool water bathed us both, and we emerged, hungry and frolicksome, to eat the scattered repast, and were transported before the great fire we had made—when?—and fell together into a deep slumber and woke inside another dream where I had become a being, oozing honey, a part of the riotous pattern of the great silk rug.
When I woke, it was to the strange reality of a morning. I lay alone, and my maid’s clothes lay about the bed. Had Henry carried me back to my room? I had been so transported in that great sleep and awakening and sleep again, that I paid no mind to this waking now. I dressed with care and with sleep-sated and shining face, I thought to dress the maid and serve him. But under my garments, I was and felt naked: Thus sweetly naked I had never felt before. I stood before the mirror and touched myself and could feel just the crinkle of my nether hair under my palm. I looked at myself with quiet joy and came downstairs on cat’s feet. I glided into the kitchen and cut some bread, cheese, fruit, and poured out the last of the milk.
I served him breakfast. I knew a difference lay between our stations. I addressed him “Master Henry,” fully expecting to be caressed and corrected. But he did not. He was lost in a book that he read as he ate, his face keen and intelligent, wrapped in the words that he did n
ot think I could share with him and understand—but I could have, I could have, I knew—just as I had shared my sweetest moments in his arms.
At this very moment there was a clatter at the front door and Mrs. Bunthorne walked briskly in, pulling off her bonnet, her shawl trailing in her hurry. She breezed into the kitchen and stopped, amazed.
“Oh, Master Henry, Master Henry,” she stammered. “She has been serving you in the wrong place.”
Little did she know about all that, I chuckled inwardly. This young man was probably from the estate in England, or a high employee from elsewhere in Ireland. In a great flurry, she was for removing the meal and taking out the fine china, when I told her I would take care of it.
“Take care of it?” she fumed.
But he swept past us saying, “Mrs. Bunthorne, I have eaten. Now I must ride off to Boyle.”
With that he was gone, without a word or a backward glance at me.
Mrs. Bunthorne had come back to gather a few essential articles which her ladyship, as usual, had left behind. One of them was her favourite snuffbox and another was a pillow that was just right for her head when she had curlers on overnight. Mr. Arkwright would deliver them while Mrs. Bunthorne was to wait here for a few weeks, in case her ladyship decided to come back to Mullaghmore. If not, she would send word for her to join her ladyship—or if Madam had grown bored by now with Ireland, return altogether to England.
The gentleman gone, Mrs. Bunthorne sat down with a great sigh to a cup of tea I had made for her.
“You look fairly glowing,” she said. I smiled back. I was glad to have her back—but only because the gentleman was gone. I would not have wanted anyone in this wide world when he was close to me. I was planning to find a way to accompany her to her ladyship, where he had gone. My mind was in turmoil. Mrs. Bunthorne had been talking and became cross when she realized I had not been attending her.
“What, Mrs. Bunthorne?” I said contritely.