Fortunes of the Heart

by Jenny Telfer Chaplin

  Over-acted it may well have been, yet this recital also received thunderous applause, in stark contrast to poor Shuggie’s piper-playing efforts. Perhaps the guests were just so relieved that on this occasion, and for the moment at least, Auld Shuggie had not been chosen to perform. For the time being, their ear-drums were safe from further assault, and thankful they were for that no small mercy. So the bottle-spinning ceilidh went on far into the night and early morning. But the grande finale, and also the high spot of the recitations, surely had to be the monologue delivered by Mick McGarrigle. He took centre stage and, having adopted a grand theatrical pose, at once launched into his tale, one which, if the experience of previous years was anything to go by, would be a real tear-jerker. Throwing his arms wide to a scenario which only he could as yet see, he declaimed:

  “The night was wild,

  His heart was sore,

  He was leaving the Homeland,

  Would see his old Granny no more.

  ’Twas a cruel blow,

  Fate dealt him thus,

  But, to the far-flung

  Wilds of Canada

  Go, he must.”

  The harrowing tale of a poor young Irish lad, driven far from his Emerald Isle by poverty, the Potato Famine and the land-grabbing greed of the Irish landed gentry, went on for about twenty verses. By the time he had reached the thirteenth verse or so, the party was already awash in a flood of tears, whisky, and maudlin sentiment. The brave welcome for the new Century had by now lost all pretence at jolly Ceilidh and now resembled nothing so much as an Irish Wake in full-flight. Somewhere on or about the twenty-third verse, the orator reached a ringing climax, which drew tears from the hardest and most callous of hearts. From every corner of the room, low moans and keening sounds could be heard and in every hand, be it young or old, was clutched a twisted, damp handkerchief rag. The only thing now dry were the tumblers, drained of every drop of the comforting, golden water of life.

  In the silence which followed the end of the epic, the only sounds to be heard were the ticking of the clock. and the snores of both Hannah and Pearce. But from the tense expression on every other face, it was obvious that, to a guest, they had tramped every weary mile of that Pioneer Trail right beside that poor heart-broken emigrant lad. With him, they had braved trial by Brown Bear and Red Indian; had endured not only pangs of hunger, but long, dark nights of longing for the Homeland; had triumphed over fiendish snow storms in the untamed Rocky Mountains. And for what? Had it all been in vain?

  All that suffering, misery and endurance only to know at the end of it all that never again, in this world at least, would-he ever see his dear old Granny again, savour her potato-cakes or share with her the setting of the sun on dear old Galway Bay. It was enough to break the stoutest of hearts.

  The first person to recover from the shared ordeal was none other than the intrepid piper himself, Auld Shuggie. Of course, it must have been many a long day since he had clapped eyes on his Granny, so perhaps it had not been such a harrowing experience for him. Whatever, it was still obvious to the rest of the revellers that he had to clear his throat a couple of times before he could trust himself to speak. At last, and making an almighty effort, he creaked his arthritic frame to its full height.

  “Well, folks, now that we are all safely back from our trek to the Wild West of that heathen country of Canada, if I could just get a wee word in edge-ways.

  Here he paused, and seeing that there were many in the group who were still mopping away at their red-rimmed eyes or even still letting the tear doon fall, he smiled round his bonhomie and encouragement.

  “I’d just like to say a wee word of thanks for this wonderful experience and bountiful hospitality we’ve enjoyed here tonight.”

  There were murmurs of agreement and much nodding of heads. This was sufficient encouragement for the would be Toastmaster to expound, at length, the attributes of their gracious hostess Mistress Kate Kinnon, and finish his oration by giving a check-list of every delicious morsel which they’d had to eat and drink.

  At last, this diatribe over, the party started breaking up and, amidst a welter of hand-shaking, back-slapping and cries of mutual goodwill, they gravitated to the hall.

  Kate and Jenny, both of them by now almost asleep on their feet, ushered their staggering guests to the outer door, as all the while inebriated ones declared not only their undying friendship but also their sincere good wishes for the New Year.

  The new century and the year of our Lord nineteen hundred had been well and truly christened and launched.

  For the moment, Kate’s most immediate future was to get Hannah and Pearce settled comfortably for the night and then tackle the clearing-up of the chaos left by her departing guests. As she surveyed the dishevelled state of her previously spotless and tidy kitchen, she sighed.

  “Some things never change.”

  Chapter 30

  The old Queen died on January 22nd 1901, and perhaps it was fitting that her loyal subject Pearce Claude Kinnon departed this life just a few days after his Monarch.

  When it was obvious that Pearce lay dying, Kate, as had been her custom throughout his life, went out of her way to provide him with such material comforts as were to hand. On the third day of his crisis, when it was clear he was sinking fast, she bent over him.

  “Listen, Pearce my darlin’. Is there anything at all you fancy to eat; a wee potato cake? A plate of Irish stovies? Anything at all, my dear, just you say it and I’ll move heaven and earth to get it for you. That I will.”

  The only response to this was a slight shaking of his wizened head on the pillow, and even this weak action seemed to drain his strength. Seeing this, Kate leant over and stroked his damp, fevered brow.

  “Well, if nothing special to eat, then is there anyone you would wish to see, Pearce?”

  This remark caused a tremulous smile to flit over his death-mask face.

  “The condemned man, eh, Kate?”

  She gave a tut-tut of mock annoyance.

  “Now then, Pearce, we’re not having any defeatist talk like that. I simply thought, a visitor to your taste might perhaps cheer you up, give you a lift. Isn’t there anyone you would like to see?’

  From the conflicting emotions racing across his face it was clear Pearce was having an inner battle. Finally, after a bit more prompting:

  “Yes, Kate, there is someone. But I would not wish to be seen like this, stuck here in the kitchen wall-bed.” Kate smiled gently.

  “Pearce, my love. There would be no problem in getting you cosily established in the good front room. Jenny could give me a hand. Sure, there’s not a pick of flesh on you, no weight on you whatever. Stoorie Sanny from the next close would very soon help you through there.”

  Pearce smiled weakly, then quickly frowned when Kate went on to say: “Only trouble is, I don’t know where on earth to start looking for Daniel.”

  Pearce tried in vain to lift his weary head from the pillow. Then, summoning all his strength, he shook his head.

  “’Twas not Daniel I had in mind as my favoured visitor.” Kate cocked her head on one side.

  “Pearce, you’ve fair got me puzzled. For I know it certainly is not Granny Gorbals that you’re desperate to see.”

  Pearce waved a trembling hand towards the battered wallet which lay on the bedside chair.

  “In there. Her address is in the inner pocket.”

  Soon a note had been hand-delivered to one Mistress Josephine Delaney, now of Monteith Row, Glasgow Green, requesting her urgent presence at the death-bed of her old and valued friend Pearce Claude Kinnon.

  A short time later, Josephine arrived in a flurry of furs, feathers and furbelows and was immediately ushered into the over-heated front room. What words passed between them, Kate would never know, for she observed Pearce’s need for privacy at this solemn moment. When a weeping Josephine Delaney finally emerged from the room, she dabbed at her eyes with her dainty lace handkerchief and said in her refined Irish accent: “
Pearce years ago mentioned a little red velvet jewel box he wished me to have as a memento, but today I could not catch where he said it was. When you find the box can you have it sent to me?”

  Mrs Delaney had a strange faraway look in her eyes, and Kate wondered if she realised had she met Pearce in a different time and in a different place, then how altered everyone’s lives might have been, with her the respected chatelaine of Laggan House, instead of merely the tolerated, paying lodger of an indigent gentlewoman in Glasgow Green, had not irresponsible youthful passions and lust dictated otherwise.

  She replaced her handkerchief in her embroidered moire reticule. That done, with ladylike elegance, she drew on her fine, long kid gloves and only then did she extend a hand towards her former landlady. She smiled bravely through her tears.

  “Goodbye then, Mistress Kinnon. Thank you so much for having observed Pearces’s last wishes in sending for me. I do appreciate that gesture more than you will ever know.”

  Kate, for once dumbstruck and struggling for words with which to reply, might just as well have saved herself the bother. For it was at once apparent that Mistress Josephine was determined to have the last word.

  “I shall not be attending the funeral. I already have my own memories of our dear Pearce. And I prefer to remember him as he was in life. My only regret is that I never really knew him as a young man in the proper setting of Laggan House. Ah well.”

  She dabbed daintily at a tear trickling down her cheek.

  “’Tis life, Mistress Kinnon, ’tis the way of things. So, this must needs be good-bye. You and I shall not meet again – at least not in this life. So, I bid you adieu and thank you again. You did exactly the right thing in sending for me. Goodbye. Goodbye.”

  And with a flurry of furs and trailing skirts, Josephine Delaney took her not-too-sad farewell of Kate Rafferty Kinnon.

  As she always had done with her grand, ladylike ways and her inborn superior manner, she left Kate feeling like the not very bright kitchen skivvy. Kate shook her head sadly as she retraced her steps to her husband’s bedside.

  Yes, Kate, you were the one who bore his children, and put up with his temper tantrums. I’m damned if the already over-jewelled, spoiled, pampered bitch of a Delaney is going to get any red velvet jewellery box – if it exists.

  She pursed her lips as she approached the inert, lifeless body of what had been Pearce Claude Kinnon. She gazed down at his waxen face through the mist of her tears.

  A fine state of affairs, this. Not only does Josephine think to inherit his worldly goods, she even has the last of his words spoken on this earth. There’s nothing left for me now.

  She jumped in surprise when Pearce’s hand moved, and he spoke so quietly that she had to bend over, her ear almost touching his lips, to hear.

  “In my box ... the one I keep our documents in ... birth certificates, marriage lines ... the small key on my watch fob ...”

  He stopped for so long Kate thought he was dead.

  “... a red velvet box ... my grandmother’s necklace ... given to me for my bride ... give it to ...”

  Death bed words or not, I’m damned if I’m going to give it to Mrs Delaney.

  “... make sure ... make sure ... my little Theresa gets it ... Katy girl.”

  Kate knelt at her husband’s bedside. There would be much to arrange in the hours and days ahead, that she already knew. But for the time being, she knelt and prayed and, for that moment at least, Kate and her Pearce were together in death as they never had been in life.

  “Mammy, are you all right, darlin’? I know this is a ... well ... a sad day for you. But I’ve never seen you look like this. Not even at the height of my problems. What is it, dear?’

  Her daughter came and knelt beside her and stroked Kate’s work-worn hand, as all the while she awaited her mother’s reply. When it came, Jenny was startled.

  “Oh, Jenny lass. I’m just sitting here thinking; the world is unevenly divided. Some with more money than they can ever use, and others with not two farthings to rub together.”

  Jenny frowned.

  “’Tis a fact of life, Mammy. Sure and we all know that. Why, even the hymns tell us that.”

  Kate smiled sadly.

  “I was just thinking, what a wasted life it had been for your poor Dadda, God rest his soul. And all my fault, of course, for having taken him away from the rich, good life at Laggan House. Now he’s dead, I just feel so guilty.”

  Jenny rose to her feet and glanced at the wall-clock.

  “Listen, Mammy, I’m going to make you a wee cup of tea. We’ve still got time. And it’ll maybe stop all this havering. Can’t think what’s got into you this morning.”

  As Jenny turned away towards the sink, Kate reached out and caught hold of her daughter’s hand.

  “What little money he had in life he spent on us. Aye, and even on that ill-fated holiday for us, doon the waiter.”

  Jenny looked down with compassion at her Mammy where she still sat at the kitchen table. She laid a comforting hand on her mother’s cheek.

  “Come on now, Mammy, we’ve important things to do. We’ve still to set the table for the funeral tea before we leave for the Necropolis. And you said it yourself, Granny Gorbals will be in any minute with some home-baking for the feast.”

  Jenny gave her mother a last, loving embrace, gently disengaged her hand and went over to the sink to fill the black kettle from the goose-necked tap. Once she had set the kettle on the hob of the blazing fire, she again turned to her mother.

  “Tell you what, Mammy. You put out the mugs and I’ll go in next door and help Granny through with the baking. Then we can all have a wee cup of tea together before we get dressed for the funeral. All right, dear? It might cheer you up a bit to have a wee blether with Granny.”

  By the time that Jenny and Granny Gorbals returned, both laden with plates piled high with pancakes, soda-bread, potato-cakes and even fingers of shortbread, Kate had still not stirred sufficiently to lay out the necessary three mugs. And the kettle on the hob was boiling furiously.

  Jenny made no comment, but after laying the plates of sweet-bites on the table, she set about making a pot of tea.

  Granny, her burden also deposited, came over and, throwing her arms wide, embraced her old friend and neighbour. The two women stayed locked in their silent embrace.

  Once they were all seated round the table, Granny glanced over at the still-sleeping figure of Hannah.

  “Aye. Just as well to let the poor girl sleep as long as possible. Once we’ve arranged the table for the funeral tea, time enough then to get her ready in her go-chair. Then Jenny can wheel both Hannah and wee Theresa in next door for me. I’ll look after the pair of them while you and Jenny are at the funeral up at the Necropolis.

  Kate shook her head sadly.

  “Granny, Granny. What would I do without you?”

  The old woman stretched over a hand which she laid on Kate’s arm.

  “Now, Kate. Don’t go getting yourself worked up. You’ll have enough upset before this day is through. That you will.”

  Kate gave a sad smile.

  “You’re right, Granny. I’ll be glad when this day’s work is over. And that’s the truth. Mind you, poor Jenny has already had a time of it with me and my grieving.”

  “We had all better get a move on,” Jenny said. “Or at this rate, poor old Dadda is going to be late for his own funeral.”

  The afternoon of Pearce’s funeral, the whole street turned out, after having first drawn the blinds on every window, in the accepted and properly respectful manner. Not that any one of the neighbours had had much time for the cantankerous old man in life, yet in death it was a totally different matter. They came, not only out of a mark of respect to the universally liked Kate, but also out of a much more mundane reason. Knowing that the Kinnon household was locally famed as a guid meat-hoose the mourners were well aware that they’d be sure of a substantial funeral tea after the cemetery rites had been observed.
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br />   The day itself dawned dull with a grey, depressing drizzle and occasional sleet which dripped and whinged away throughout the morning, almost in the same way as Pearce himself had for so many years.

  The local Episcopalian rector was persuaded to conduct the short interment service at the-graveside in Glasgow’s vast Necropolis instead of the priest from the High Anglican Church Pearce had preferred.

  The one bright spot in the day was when Kate, surrounded as she was on all sides by her daughter Jenny, her friends and neighbours, leant forward and laid a carefully hoarded pressed shamrock on the top of his coffin. At that very moment, as if right on cue, the sun broke forth from the grey, overcast sky and it was as if a searchlight beamed down on the tiny part of dear old

  Ireland which would go with Pearce to his grave. As the coffin was lowered into the depths of the earth, a lone piper played a haunting Scottish lament. This last touch had been Kate’s own idea.

  She remembered that the one happy time in their married life had been the one all-too-brief start of that long ago and ill-fated holiday doon the wafter in Royal Rothesay. She could still recall the look of rare pleasure on her husband’s face each time they had gone down to the pier, there to listen to the local band of pipers who often greeted the packed incoming boats of happy holidaymakers.

  When she was making the myriad and essential arrangements for the funeral, the thought had come to her:

  I wasn’t able to make him happy very often in life, so perhaps there’s something I can do for him in death, to give him a good send-off.

  In the days that followed, she had racked her brains well into the wee small hours for what that special something might be. Then in a flash, one morning at dawn, it came to her.