‘Did you get back to Doohoma Head?’ Jack asked suddenly. ‘Did you find what it was you were looking for?’
Ruby folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them.
‘I did, thank you, Jack. I’m not sure if I exactly found what I was looking for, but I did find the house.’
‘Was it as you remembered it to be? You are very lucky having your own house, you know.’
Ruby sighed and looked out of the window. She didn’t feel very lucky.
‘Can you keep a secret?’ asked Jack. ‘If you can, I’ll tell you one and then you can tell me one of yours.’
Ruby was intrigued. Jack didn’t look like the sort of man who would have a secret.
‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘It’s a deal. You tell me yours and I’ll tell you one of mine.’
Jack took his pipe off the dashboard and steered the wheel of the cabin with one hand and a knee whilst he lit up.
He’s teasing me, making me wait, thought Ruby. Jack puffed away until Ruby could bear it no longer.
‘Would you stop!’ she squealed. ‘Are you going to tell me a secret, or not?’
Jack gave her a lopsided grin, ‘You mustn’t tell the McKinnons,’ he said, ‘only I’m bursting to tell someone.’
Ruby pushed him playfully on the arm. ‘Tell me,’ she said again.
‘Well, now, I am a man who has been in love with Amy for many a year and I finally plucked up the courage to ask her to marry me. She made me wait mind, but just now, before you came into the kitchen, she put me out of my misery and said yes, she will. How’s that for a secret? She did say I wasn’t to tell anyone until after the ball, but I know I can trust you, Ruby.’
Now Ruby stood up in the cab. ‘Jack, that is the most fantastic news.’ She was almost jumping up and down.
‘Sit down,’ laughed Jack. ‘If I don’t get you there in one piece she might change her mind.’
‘Why does it have to be a secret?’ asked Ruby.
‘She wants to wait until after the ball is over and done and she said everything has to be back to normal because she wants a party and so do I. We will get the fiddler to come. I have waited long enough, so I have. Now tell me your secret.’
‘Well, I have a mystery really, Jack. When I went home to Doohoma, I found that the books were still on the bookshelf, just as my ma had left them. They were damp and they fell apart in my hand, but the inside covers were still in one piece. They had been stacked tightly on the shelf and what I saw for the first time, and I cannot understand, is that the Ballyford library stamp was on the inside of each cover. I want to ask someone, but every time I go to ask Mrs McKinnon, something stops me.’
Jack took a long pull on his pipe. ‘What do you know about your mammy and daddy, Ruby?’ he said gently. ‘What do you remember?’
He thought Ruby might not want to answer and he was ready to accept that. Jack was a man of few words himself and he recognized and respected it in others. It was the gentleness of his voice and the quiet manner in which he asked the question that helped her to open up in response.
‘I remember all the nice memories. I remember my brother and fishing with my da. I remember that my mammy was a stickler for teaching us to read and write, but every time I try to think of the past, all that comes to mind is the last few days. My mammy told me I had family, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. She was very sick.
Jack glanced sideways at her as he changed gear. ‘Well, if those books had the Ballyford stamp in, they came from the castle and the people who know everything about that are Mr and Mrs McKinnon. They’ve been here that long and their ancestors before them. If I were you, I would pluck up the courage and ask. What was your mammy’s name, Ruby? Do you know?’
‘Her name was Iona,’ Ruby said.
Two young boys were running alongside the truck trying to hitch a lift on the running board. Ruby wound the window down. ‘Get down. You will hurt yourself,’ she shouted.
‘Are they mad or what?’ she asked Jack.
Jack didn’t reply.
‘What’s up?’ asked Ruby. ‘Shouldn’t I have shouted at them?’
‘No, no, that’s right. You tell them,’ he said, changing gear and driving slightly faster. The crowd in the town had become thinner the further they drove away from the market and had finally entirely dispersed.
‘So, Jack, that is one of my secrets and you’re right. I know the day will soon come when I have the courage to ask Mrs McKinnon.’
‘One of your secrets?’ enquired Jack. ‘You have more?’
‘Oh yes, I do, but there is one secret I will never tell anyone.’ Ruby blushed.
Jack recognized that blush. God knows, it had happened to him often over the years.
‘Well, if you were to share it with me, I would tell you this. You could travel a long way to find a lad as nice as Danny, and the rooms he has above the stables, they could be made nice now so they could. Anyway, you don’t have to answer me, I’m just saying. Everyone knows he’s sweet on you.’
Ruby knew Danny had no notion of keeping his feelings private. She had even heard him asking Amy if she thought Ruby was sweet on him. There would be no harm in Jack thinking that Danny was her secret love.
‘Shall I tell you something else?’ said Jack, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Your friend from Belmullet, who was at the convent with you, is coming from the pub with Amy’s cousin to help at the ball. She will be staying for the night with the other casual staff.’
‘Lottie? Why didn’t Mrs McKinnon tell me?’ Ruby couldn’t keep the grin from her face.
‘Well, now, I reckon they was wanting to make it a surprise. You could work on Amy and persuade her to let your friend stay over for a few days and help with the clearing up. Wouldn’t that be grand?’
Ruby felt tears prickle behind her eyes. She had missed Lottie so much and she had such a desperate need to see her.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ she whispered, ‘you are a really kind person. I’m glad Amy has said yes to you.’
*
Once in Galway, they loaded up with the fish and flowers, then parked the van in a garage that belonged to Jack’s friend. They packed ice into the buckets of fish and then Jack and Ruby set off with the list. She was completely taken with the size and grandeur of Galway. At lunchtime, Jack even took her into a pub for a drink and a pie to sustain them both.
‘No man or woman ever got a good day’s work done on an empty stomach,’ he told her.
He allowed her to dawdle outside the bookshop, the tailor and the dress shop. It was only when she spotted a sweet shop, she remembered she’d promised to bring some back for Mary, Betsy and Jane.
She bought eight ounces of sugar twist for Mary and Betsy, the same of mint humbugs for Mr and Mrs McKinnon, sour lemons for Jane and then a large mixed bag of misshapen sweets for the staff to share.
The light was fading as they left Galway, both happy that they had everything Amy had ordered. Ruby checked the quantity of gelatine over and over, so nervous was she of incurring Amy’s wrath and being hit over the head with an ox’s tongue.
Exhausted, but content, she slipped into the cab for the long journey home, while the street lights of Galway lit up the damp pavements and street sellers began to pack up the wares after a long day.
‘They will be waiting up when we get back, wanting to hear all our news now.’
‘They will and the fish will have to be put straight into the cold store as soon as we are back,’ said Ruby. ‘The ice in the back is such a big lump, it can’t possibly melt for another day yet, and I would say that was a stroke of genius I had there, Jack, to lay the flowers on top of the ice.’
Jack laughed. ‘Get you, one day in Galway and you are full of yerself.’
Ruby flopped back on the seat. The early start, the excitement of the day and the trudging along Galway’s streets had taken its toll. Her head lolled back and her face changed from black to marmalade gold to black again as they passed beneath the gas l
amps and headed for the outskirts of Galway and the long bumpy road back to Ballyford.
‘I’ve been thinking about your books, Ruby. Now, what I’m about to say, ye must not tell another living soul.’
‘Of course, Jack,’ murmured Ruby, fighting to keep her eyes open. The motion of the wheels on the cobbles, the warmth of the cab, the dark of the night and her own exhaustion were carrying her away.
‘I got the shock of me life when you said your mammy’s name was Iona. ’Twas was all I could do to keep me face straight and the wheels from running off the road. I never thought I would hear that name again, so I didn’t, and it has to be the same Iona, there cannot be another from round these parts.
‘I doubt it,’ murmured Ruby, sleepily.
Jack continued, ‘From Belmullet to Kiltane, you will find plenty of Bridgets and Patricias, and in Bangor, Julia is a very exotic and popular name, but there is no family around here who has used the name Iona, that’s for sure. I know where the name is from, ’tis from the island between us and Scotland, very popular there. It was Mrs McKinnon who chose her name when she arrived, but it was me they called to hand her to Rory Doyle, who took her away when the old Lord FitzDeane died and that is a day I have never forgot. And, God knows, for all this time, we thought she was dead and the old lord had ordered her killed and done away with and the feeling was so bad, Rory Doyle fled to England. Now, his running off like that made us think that maybe ‘twas true.’
He kept his eyes firmly on the dark road ahead.
‘She was only eight years old, was Iona, and she could read better than me. I can’t read at all, to be honest, but the little princess, she was a clever one and a half now and everyone knew it. Oh, she ruled the servants at that castle, all right, so bold she was, you have never known a child as bold as she was. Had them all wrapped around her little finger and God, sure, they all loved her to bits. She would march into the kitchen and drag her own chair to the table and little Lord Charles, he was devoted to her he was, devoted. He did everything she told him and she mothered him something wicked. Someone needed to. His mother made an appearance on high days and holidays and that was it. You could have sunk a Belmullet trawler with the tears that were cried on the day Rory Doyle took her away. Jesus, some of them were nearly me own and I was just a young lad meself at the time.
‘Now, here’s the thing. She had turned up in the night when she was just a babby. Found in the stable she was, just like the baby Jesus. The stable boy discovered her when he came down in the morning. Danny’s daddy it was, God rest his soul. She lay there with her big eyes looking at him and didn’t cry at all at the strangeness of him, he said. All she had was the clothes she had been left in and a shawl wrapped around her. The old cook, God, she let out a roar, she did, when she saw her. She had grown up listening to the storyteller and that’s why it was such a shock. It was like a prophecy that had come true. They reckon she was related to a mysterious girl who had lived in the apothecary’s cottage with an ancestor of Miss McAndrew, back in the time of the famine. They say she had some connection with the Ballyford family. I don’t know what was discussed, but that baby was put in the nursery and that was it, she never left until the day Lord Charles’ grandaddy died and Rory Doyle did the bidding of his father and took his blood money and ran.
‘God, that was a journey that night, that was. I had to drive the cart. You have never in your life heard a child give out like Iona did. Scratched Rory Doyle’s face to bits, she did. God help us, one minute her and the young Lord Charles were playing on the nursery floor, the next, Mr McKinnon is scooping her up into his arms and Mrs McKinnon is throwing her belongings at me. I have never seen Mrs McKinnon in a state like she was on that day. Loved the girl she did. Rory Doyle was behind the front door. He didn’t want Lord Charles to see him. Knew back then he did that he would wheedle his way into the young lord’s life. His parents were never there and Rory Doyle knew that. Sharp as a razor he was and twice as shifty. Lord Charles followed him everywhere around the estate and Rory didn’t want him to see him taking Iona away. I was upset at what we were doing, God, so I was. Taking a child away from what she knew was her home, but Rory Doyle, all he could see was the money in his palm the new lord had paid him to do his dirty work. Mrs McKinnon was in tears, desperate she was. Packed a bag and we were out of the room in less than half an hour.
‘I said to her, “What are we doing? The granddaddy’s just dead in his bed. You can’t do this.”
‘“No, you are right, I can’t,” she said, “but his son can, and he is, so don’t make this harder for me.”
‘She was talking about Lord Charles’s father, so she was. He had been sat at his father’s bedside and the moment the doctor pronounced he was dead, and the front door was shut on the doctor, he tore around the castle like a madman. He was different from the others. More like his mother, stiff as a board. I don’t think he even knew my name, I was just a lad then, no more than fifteen, but I still don’t think he knew my name on the day when he himself died years later.
‘Mrs McKinnon, she threw the child’s clothes in the bag and all the time, Lord Charles was pulling at Mr McKinnon’s trousers and trying to pull the girl down out of his arms.
‘“Who is going to stay with the wee lad?” I asked Mrs McKinnon, as she threw a coat at me to wrap around the child, but I had no sooner spoke than Mrs McKinnon held onto him by his shoulders and placed her hands over his ears.
‘“’Tis a bad business,” she said to me. “If you value your life, you won’t repeat anything about this to anyone.”
‘“God, sure, of course I won’t, never, not a word will pass me lips,” I told her and then, just as we were ready to leave, Mrs McKinnon shouted, “Wait!” She ran to a bookcase and took the whole top row of books and squashed them onto the top of the big bag. “God help her. She loves her books,” she said and when I looked at her, the tears were pouring down her own cheeks, just pouring they were.
‘The child had stopped crying now, there were just these big, terrible sobs which came every few seconds. God in heaven, it kills me even telling you this. Every sob was like a pain in me own chest, she was so confused.
‘“Get downstairs,” Mrs McKinnon said to me. “He’s waiting outside the front door.”
‘I looked at Mr McKinnon for help, because I no more wanted to carry that child away from little Lord Charles than have the hot poker stuck in me eye. “He can’t do this can he?” I asked him. But no one answered me, no one.
‘It was dark, about the time it is just now. Night had fallen when we left in the old landau. I drove the horses and Rory Doyle sat the child in between us. ‘Geesala,’ he said and even though I had known him all of me life, that was the only word he would speak to me. I turned the horses out towards the Geesala road and we made the journey hardly speaking another word. He was never one to talk, always shifty. He put one face on for Lord Charles and another for the rest of us.
‘Along the roads we went at a fast trot. ’Twas a full moon and I remember how it shone on Blacksod Bay and reflected off the water, lit the road like daylight, it did. The horses and I, we could see the way all right and the only noise was the hooves and the wheels of the cart crunching against the gravel road. It was as if we could be heard for miles around. And I thought to meself, someone is watching us. Someone is seeing and listening and I can tell, whoever it is, they are not happy. The hair on my arms and my neck, they stood up. The horses, they was jittery and almost spooked and yet they was used to being out at night. I often took out four in the old days, for the trip to Dublin when I took Lord FitzDeane for the morning crossing. I shivered and yet the night, it was warm. I blessed myself and I said to Rory, “Have you the rosaries with you?” He didn’t answer, but moments later I heard the clicking of the beads. He was a wicked man doing an evil deed and he was praying. Explain that to me, if you can. And that was it, the wheels crunching on the road, the horses’ hooves and the click of the rosaries as they slipped through his finge
rs was the sound that carried all the way and I know that like me, as big as he thought he was, Rory Doyle couldn’t get there quick enough.
‘We stopped on the road out of Bangor Erris and he pointed up a track on the left where I had to stop the cart. The forest became too dense for the horses and the ground too muddy for the landau. I knew there was a house up there. Just a small cottage, up in the trees and an old lady lived there, alone. We weren’t going to Geesala at all and never had been. He had Iona whisked down before the wheels had fully stopped turning. She didn’t cry, she just stood in the light of the lantern and looked at me with her big eyes and I have never forgot them, or her. I truly thought that something quite wicked had happened to the child and so did everyone else. That was why Rory Doyle had to flee. Oh, aye, there was a lot of anger directed towards Rory Doyle. His poor mammy, she had no idea. Not a soul had told her what a wicked son she had given birth to.
‘And so, now I know what happened to Iona. She died in the storm of ’47 not when Rory Doyle took her away and she was yer mammy, of that I’m sure. So what have ye to say to that?’
Jack turned to look at Ruby. She was fast asleep. Her breathing was deep and sonorous, her head lolling from side to side. He doubted she had heard a word. He reached for his pipe on the dashboard and balanced the steering wheel with his knees once again as he lit up.
‘Well, maybe just as well,’ he muttered. He had guessed she was asleep from her lack of response, but had continued in the knowledge that he had at least tried to unburden his secret. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie,’ he said, as she turned onto her side to face him and noisily sucked her thumb. Jack smiled to himself. In her waking hours she was as independent as any woman he had ever met and yet, looking at her as she slept, she could have been but a child. ‘Let Ballyford’s secret lie,’ he said, as he pulled on his pipe and drove onto the unlit road home.
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