25
The sky wept.
Or that was how it appeared to Ruby as the dawn broke and the heavens opened, providing a timely downpour of the heaviest rain they had ever witnessed. The steaming kitchen was crowded with tenants and staff, who had worked throughout the night and fought with every ounce of their strength. Now they had stepped indoors to catch their breath, as God lifted the burden from their exhausted hands, drenched the roof and finally controlled the fire.
No one spoke. The obvious words hung between them but were too raw to speak out loud.
The kitchen smelt overpoweringly of smoke and ash, wet bodies and despair. Jane took the hot teapot from the range and poured scalding tea into mugs as Betsy, who could not stop herself from sobbing, passed them around. Someone had put a mattress on the floor where Mary lay shaking like a leaf, and the only sound in the room was that of her pitiful sobs.
‘My throat burns,’ she whispered to Ruby and Ruby could do no more than scoop her into her own arms and rock her. Loyal and faithful Mary had been the bravest of the brave. She had risked her own life to try and save those of Amy and Lady Isobel.
One of the tenant farmers was the first to break the silence. His face and arms were covered in soot and his eyes shone brightly from his mask of charcoal. He had been one of last men to stop fighting the fire in the upper corridor.
‘’Tis a bad fecking night,’ he whispered.
No one answered. They had no way of expressing the horror they had just witnessed.
A piercing scream suddenly ripped through the air. Two of the boys had run to fetch Amy’s mother from the farm and as a sign of respect, she had been taken through the front door of the castle to the downstairs hall, where the bodies had been laid.
The nursery wing was entirely inaccessible. Piles of soaking bales were stacked along the end of the landing. The carpets were sodden, and pictures were stood against the gallery rails having been hurriedly dismounted for safety and moved away from the most damaging effects of the smoke.
Mercifully, the men had contained the worst of the fire and the main section of the castle had escaped major damage. It had been saved by its own skin, the thick granite stone walls and the fact that the nursery wing had been added as an appendage to the castle. The sturdy, studded double oak door at the end of the corridor, originally built to ensure that the noise of children did not disturb those in the main body of the castle, was almost twelve inches thick and had been slammed shut as soon as the alarm had been raised. Boys had run up and down the central staircase all night long, pouring water onto the hay bales, which Mr McKinnon had ordered to be stacked up against the doors. Now, the water ran along the floorboards, soaked the carpets and even began to seep through the ceilings and down the walls.
Mr McKinnon had been in search of Amy when he met Betsy, screaming and running down the main staircase.
‘What in heaven’s name are you doing?’ he shouted to Betsy, barely able to believe his eyes. Betsy wasted no time in telling him.
‘There’s a fire in the nursery and Mary has gone in.’
From that moment on, all hell broke loose.
‘Get down the stairs, Betsy, and tell the boys to fetch the fire tender from the stables and tell Mrs McKinnon what’s happening. I’m going to see what’s to be done.’
Betsy didn’t stay to argue with him as she flew down to the kitchen, screaming at the top of her voice as she ran, ‘Fire, fire!’
With a wet rag tied across his face, and his eyes streaming with tears from the smoke, Mr McKinnon had locked every door on his way along the study corridor. He thought that if he could seal the nursery wing he could prevent the fire from spreading. As he followed the sound of Mary’s shouts it seemed like only seconds before Jimmy and the rest of the lads were running behind him. But they were all too late.
On the ground floor, he organized the fire fighting effort with military efficiency.
‘Keep going, keep going, more, more,’ he shouted to every man, woman and child he saw with an empty bucket. The tenants had arrived at the castle, carrying their own metal pails. Children as young as seven stood at the well and the stable taps, filling pails and passing them along the line.
At the open end of the nursery wing, the tenants had entered through the orangery. The hose from the fire tender was connected to the carp pond outside the orangery and here Danny worked his own miracle. McKinnon told him to pile the bales of wet hay along the top of the steps outside the landing door. ‘I will, Mr McKinnon,’ shouted Danny, ‘I will, don’t you worry about me,’ and then he soaked them repeatedly with the hose.
They had all been stunned by the bravery of little Mary, who had run into the burning room to rescue her Amy, and she had almost done it. She had dragged her along the floor with a strength she had never known she had, until Jimmy reached her.
In the kitchen, the screams had given way to sobbing and murmured prayer.
‘That’s Amy’s mother,’ whispered Mrs McKinnon, only just able to contain her own distress. ‘Who is with her?’ She felt dizzy with exhaustion. I’m too old for this, she thought to herself.
‘Jack is,’ said one of the maids, sadly. ‘Jack and the priest.’
‘God help us all,’ said Mr McKinnon, walking into the kitchen. He was the last to return indoors from the calamity outside and was soaked through to the skin. ‘It’s raining stair rods,’ he said. ‘Whoever prayed for rain has been rewarded.’
It wasn’t just any old rain, but beating, wind-driven, fire-extinguishing rain.
They all heard the car coming up the drive at the same time.
‘’Tis the Garda,’ said a small boy, unable to comprehend the meaning of death and the need for stillness and reverence. He ran in noisily through the kitchen door. ‘Give us a drink then, I’m gasping, me mouth tastes of smoke.’
He grabbed the mug from his older brother and looked around the kitchen. He had never before been in a room with so many people, where not one person was speaking. It was not the Irish way.
‘How will you cope with all this, aren’t you exhausted?’ Mrs McKinnon asked her husband. He seemed to have aged ten years in as many hours.
Mr McKinnon squeezed her hand, his eyes on her face. ‘I will, because I have to. But right now, I have to drive to the station to collect Lord Charles from the train.’
‘Does he know?’
‘No, he knows about the fire, but not about Lady Isobel. I’ll tell him when I see him. That way he will have some time to gather his thoughts.’
Mrs McKinnon wanted to say to him, You also are too old for this, this will break us, it is too much, but now was not the time.
‘Danny, Jimmy, come with me,’ said Mr McKinnon. He had a list of jobs he needed done while he drove to the station, but with all his heart he wished he could stay and comfort his wife.
This is too much for her, he thought, watching her help Mary into the library with a tray of tea for Amy’s mother and Jack. She would have to organize for Amy to return to the cottages, and Lady Isobel to the castle chapel. In Amy’s cottage, two candles would be lit at the head of her bed and her room would be filled with the sound of women whispering, murmuring and grieving for their loss. For Lady Isobel, the cold castle chapel would be filled with the sound of silence.
*
Mrs McKinnon had sent one of the boys on a bike to Bangor Erris for Annie Shevlin to attend to the bodies.
Annie wore a long black skirt and shawl with a dark grey woollen scarf draped over her head like a judge’s wig. She could not have been more than four feet eleven inches tall and had toothless, sunken cheeks and bright black, pinprick eyes.
‘Ah, Annie.’ Mrs McKinnon hesitated as they entered the kitchen. She wanted to say, ‘It’s good to see you,’ but of course, it was anything but. ‘We will move Amy back home now and the lady upstairs and then you can begin.’
Mrs Shevlin had laid out every corpse in Bangor Erris and its neighbourhood for the past fifty years. Everyone wondered wh
o would do it for her when it came to her turn.
She lived on the five shillings she earned for each corpse she tended. There had been talk of an undertaker establishing himself in the area. A notion which had been rapidly rejected. Only Annie knew how the corpse had once looked when enjoying life. Torn up rags were stuffed in cheeks to create a youthful appearance which the body may not have enjoyed for many years. Skin was scrubbed clean, dried heather posies placed in hands and each corpse was dressed in its Sunday best. Candles were lit and there they lay, in their own beds. In the west of Ireland, people looked after their own.
26
‘I’m thinking now that the fire was caused by a block of peat, which had fallen from the fire.’ The officer from the Garda held out his notepad and squinted slightly. He looked very self-important. ‘The coroner will be reaching the same conclusion on the basis of my thorough investigation.’
No one said a word in response, but Mrs McKinnon’s gaze fell upon the fireside. The grate was four feet from the edge of the hearth. Peat often fell, but well within the perimeter of the outer hearth.
Isobel had kept candles burning for each of the children daily.
‘It could possibly have been one of the candles, as well, I’m thinking that now,’ the guard suggested as he caught Mrs McKinnon looking at a candle holder on the floor. ‘Maybe it toppled over in the draught, whilst the ladies were sleeping. But for the coroner’s report, I’m sticking with the peat.’
What was known was that Lady Isobel had been asleep on the chaise longue when Mary popped in and Amy, exhausted from the days of preparation in the kitchen, was fast asleep on the chair near the door, where she had been waiting for Lady Isobel to finish her meal.
‘Where is the young girl who raised the alarm and the one who ran in?’ asked the guard.
‘Betsy? She is downstairs and goodness me, you can’t speak to Mary. She has been beside herself with grief. Betsy was a hero, discovering the fire, raising the alarm and then Mary running into it to save Amy. She nearly lost her own life in the effort. We almost had three deaths, not two. What did you want to ask them? Would you like more tea, maybe another slice of cake?’
The guard had so far written his report with the aid of copious cups of tea. He took so long that Mrs McKinnon’s patience began to shred and she wanted to scream at him, ‘Get out, get out!’ but instead, she smiled sweetly and summoned the various members of staff as requested, everyone except Mary. Her eyes were heavy, but not as heavy as her heart. She had to keep repeating to herself, Hold on, hold on.
Mrs McKinnon wanted the guard gone, but she also felt her heart beating like a trapped bird in her chest as she still tried to make sense of her own discovery, earlier that day.
*
Two days later, Mrs McKinnon took a while longer than usual to leave her bed in the morning. The forbidden sun brightened her room, sliding sideways in through a crack in the curtain. Every shutter and blind in the castle was closed tight and would remain so for the entire week, as was the custom.
‘I feel as though we have organized more than our fair share of funerals,’ she said to her husband, as she perched on the side of their bed and drank the cup of tea he had made for her. In all the years they had been married, she had never once told him how much she appreciated that morning cup of tea. She didn’t have to. Some things just didn’t need to be said, with a bond as strong as theirs. They knew each other’s thoughts.
Mr McKinnon had dressed in his morning suit and sat on the bed next to his wife, fastening his cuffs.
‘There is no one who would disagree with you,’ he said. ‘We have to attend to Lady Isobel today and then I think we need to have a little talk. Maybe it’s time for us to return to Scotland and break the chains with this life. The wickedness, along with the flamin’ ghost I refuse to confirm the existence of but, we both know it is here; lurking, waiting.’
Mrs McKinnon gently laid the cup and saucer on the table next to her and took an object out of her dressing gown pocket. Both her hands were tightly cupped around something and she stared down at her lap, deep in thought.
‘What is it? What do you have there?’
McKinnon put out his own hand and lightly unfurled her fingers. Lying in the palms of her hands was a soot-stained, emerald green, ribbed medicine bottle.
‘What is that?’ he asked. ‘Where is that from?’
‘Oh, it’s where I found it that matters, not where it’s from,’ replied Mrs McKinnon, her voice edged with anger and dismay. ‘It has lived in my medicine cabinet in the scullery for years. I replace it each year, in case we need to use it quickly. It is for emergency use only. The doctor and I go through the medicine chest once a year and he replaces it with fresh.’
‘Is it the morphine?’ McKinnon asked.
Mrs McKinnon nodded.
‘Aye, and the last time we used it was when young Liam caught his fingers in the scythe at last year’s harvest, remember?’
‘I do,’ said McKinnon. ‘But why is that bottle in your hands now?’
‘It was on the nursery floor, by the side of Lady Isobel’s chair. I saw it the day before yesterday, when I took the guard up to the room, and I slipped it into my apron pocket before he could see it.’
McKinnon began to pace up and down the room.
‘Why do you think it was in there, who would have used it?’
Mrs McKinnon watched him carefully as the realization slowly dawned.
‘You think Lady Isobel meant to kill herself?’
‘I do. She had the key to the medicine chest in her pocket. I couldn’t believe it when Annie Shevlin handed it to me, after she had laid them both out. Lady Isobel cannot have realized that Amy had fallen asleep on the chair watching over her. She killed them both.’
‘But, why?’ McKinnon asked. ‘Why?’
‘God only knows. All I know is that I have lost two people that I cared for very much and right at this moment, I have no idea how I am going to get through yet another funeral.’
‘What do we do about this? Do we tell the Garda?’
‘God in heaven, no we do not. We shall have no scandal. This is another secret. As big as the last one and as God is my judge, I shall take both with me to my grave when my turn comes.’
Meanwhile, Ruby had thought she would make the McKinnons some tea and take it to their room as a gesture of kindness. She would tell them both that the staff breakfast was well under way and they could take their time. Today was a sad day for them and she wanted to take as much responsibility away from them as she possibly could.
Ruby felt almost faint with relief at the arrival of Lottie. She had travelled with the staff from the inn in Belmullet and half of the residents from the town the previous day for Amy’s funeral and she had slept with Ruby and Betsy and Jane the previous night. Ruby was amazed at the change that had overcome Jane. Her surliness dispatched, she had been helpfulness itself and was clearly struggling with her own grief.
Now Ruby lifted her hand to knock on the McKinnons door but stopped when she heard them both talking. She could just about hear what they said and quietly turned to make her way on tiptoe back to the castle kitchen, with the still fresh tea tray.
She couldn’t understand what she had just heard, but she had grasped the facts. Lady Isobel had taken her own life and accidentally taken Amy with her. Ruby felt cold to her bones, realizing that if she hadn’t been in Galway with Jack, it would very likely have been her funeral that people were attending.
‘Whatever is the matter?’ asked Lottie who was placing the risen loaves in the oven with Mary.
Ruby shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered and nodded towards Mary to let Lottie know that she would tell her later.
Jane was sat at the table with the usually rowdy Danny. Each one quiet and solemn. They had no words as nothing anyone said could express the loss they felt at how awful the once bustling and busy kitchen was without Amy.
I don’t want to be in here, it doesn’t seem right
any more,’ said Danny, who wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. ‘I wish Amy were here now, just yelling at me or sending me out with the broom or throwing the tin cup down the yard after me like she used to.’
‘Shh now,’ said Jane. ‘Amy will be going mad in heaven if she sees you crying so she will.’ Ruby was almost open mouthed watching Jane comforting others.
‘’Tis a good way to get by,’ said Betsy. ‘To imagine Amy is watching us, that she can see what we are doing. What would she be saying now if she could see the sorry state of us all?’
*
The previous evening, Betsy and Ruby had chatted to Lottie in the bedroom while they waited for Jane to join them. Jane who had moved in and out of her own room, depending upon her mood of the day. The last thing she wanted now was to be isolated. They were all shadowing each other, even the boys. No one wanted to be alone with their grief.
‘It seems a crisis was all that was needed to bring that Jane down to earth,’ Betsy had confided to Ruby and Lottie.
‘Aye, that’s true,’ said Ruby. I would never have believed the change in Jane if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes. She is a different girl altogether. ’Tis Mary who has done it. Little Mary, she has made everyone think and put us all to shame. She has never had a bad word to say about anyone, Mary, and look at her. I shall never forget what she did.’
‘’Tis such a shock.’ Lottie joined in. ‘What a life you all live here. I had no idea Ruby and here’s me living the life at the hotel in Belmullet having a grand time and you with all these problems and now this.’
‘I know,’ said Ruby. ‘I don’t think I could take another calamity.’ The girls turned down their sheets, entirely unaware that as Ruby spoke, a further catastrophe, as unstoppable as an ocean wave, was heading towards them all.
27
Mr McKinnon took Charles his breakfast and found him sitting at the study desk, staring out through the window towards the ocean. His heart sank. That was where he had left him the previous evening with the promise that he would take himself to bed shortly.
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