Ruby Flynn

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Did you sleep in that chair?’ he asked as he approached the desk.

  The answer was so obvious, Lord Charles ignored the question answering instead, ‘When I swore to myself that I would never carry another coffin, it hadn’t occurred to me that I might have to carry my own wife’s so soon.’

  Charles’s face was a mask, betraying no emotion. He would survive the day, doing what he knew he had to do.

  Lady Isobel would be buried today, three days after the fire and one day after Amy. Even though the lady of the castle was not well known locally, the communities from Belmullet to Bangor and all the villages around filled the chapel. Some villagers had set out from their homes hours before. Some had arrived for Amy’s funeral the previous day and decided to remain for Lady Isobel’s. They found themselves sleeping in the homes of relatives so distant, it was a stretch to even describe them as such.

  ‘Sorry for your troubles. Sorry for your troubles.’ The whispered condolences from people normally too self-conscious or afraid to address a lord swept Charles into the chapel. He was grateful that the crypt could seat only a hundred visitors and that the tenants and the villagers could not see his face. He knew more than most how to conceal the emotion local people would expect from him. He would not and could not wail. He also knew they would find his composure difficult to understand. It was in his blood, a consequence of breeding, and as a result they would judge him to be cold-hearted.

  He said all the right things to anyone who spoke to him.

  ‘Thank you so much for your concern.’ ‘I am touched by your words.’ ‘My wife would be so terribly grateful.’ ‘Yes, it is utterly devastating, but we shall pull through, with your kind thoughts to sustain us.’ Even as he spoke the words, he knew all too well, there was no ‘we’ or ‘us’. He was truly alone.

  He took his seat at the front of the church and looked around him.

  He had asked for Jack to be seated next to him. Amy, Jack’s wife-to-be, had died with his own. He owed that to the man. Charles had not attended Amy’s funeral. It was not expected of him and would only have made the tenants uncomfortable.

  Charles heard a shuffle at the back of the chapel and saw Ruby, guiding Jack down the aisle by the elbow. His heart constricted. He felt the blood rush to his face, as if saying to him, You are not dead. You are still alive. Hallelujah.

  ‘Thank you, Ruby,’ he whispered, as he took Jack’s arm from her. The sunlight streamed in through the stained glass window and caught her in a pillar of light. Wisps of her often wayward hair crowned her in a halo of chestnut and gold. She glided away, conscious of eyes upon her. As she moved, Charles leaned towards her, as though hooked by an invisible thread. It snapped, and she was gone.

  A depressing sense of loss overwhelmed him. Where had it come from? From the wife who had slipped away, slowly but completely, some time ago? Or from Ruby, who refused even to look at him?

  ‘Exaudi orationem meam.’ The priest began swinging the incense thurible from side to side, filling the air with holy smoke. The congregation fell to their knees and with heads bowed, began to pray.

  *

  Over fifty couples had travelled from London to Ballyford Castle and a similar number from Liverpool. Many had left before the news of the fire had reached them. They had packed their finery, ready to attend the Ballyford Ball. Instead they had to dress for a funeral. Some had to scour the Dublin stores for mourning black. By the time fifty ladies had finished, there was not a black mantilla to be found in all Dublin.

  The conversations murmured behind lamps and in corners were very different from those spoken out loud.

  ‘Awful business. I was very close to her. I shall miss her dreadfully’ lied an old friend of Charles’s aunt, to an even older friend of his mother.

  ‘They say the castle is haunted,’ whispered a banker friend of Charles’s from London, to a school friend of Isobel’s.

  The farm girls circled the room holding out plates of food and taking empty trays back downstairs to the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t know how we would have managed without Lottie,’ Mrs McKinnon said to Ruby, as she sent two more girls back up the stairs with loaded trays to feed the guests. Ruby could see that Mrs McKinnon was only just about coping. The swarm of girls from the cottages who had arrived at the castle to help were almost as much work as the wake itself.

  ‘I’m not surprised she’s struggling,’ whispered Lottie to Ruby while Mrs McKinnon issued the girls instructions in a voice that occasionally contained an uncharacteristic wobble. ‘When I asked one of them to carry a fresh platter of prawns, she screamed and ran for the kitchen door. She had never seen anything like it before. Mind you, they are farm girls, so we can’t expect too much from them.’

  Ruby grinned. ‘And we are convent girls from the best convent in all of Ireland and therefore we are so much more sophisticated.’ But as both girls started to laugh, Ruby pulled herself up short. Today was not a day for laughter. Yesterday they had buried Amy and today it had been Lady Isobel’s turn.

  ‘Don’t you worry about laughing, girls,’ said Mrs McKinnon, turning her attention back to Ruby and Lottie. ‘You are standing in Amy’s kitchen and there was no one who enjoyed a laugh more than our Amy, isn’t that right, Betsy?’

  Betsy nodded. ‘That’s half of the problem, that’s why we miss her so much.’ Ruby had noticed that Betsy was permanently on the verge of tears. She had found the funeral especially difficult.

  ‘Sit down, Mrs McKinnon,’ said Ruby, worried by how diminished she looked. ‘You look as white as a sheet, let us finish off. Most of the guests have left now and the drivers are outside in the yard. Some people are travelling all the way back to Dublin tonight and will be lucky to make it for midnight, if they don’t leave soon.’

  Mrs McKinnon sank into the chair.

  ‘That Rory Doyle and his awful wife are just leaving. I cannot bear them. Did you ever hear a woman talk so much during a requiem mass? Irish women can talk and that no one can deny, but they know to shut up in the sight of God.’

  Ruby frowned. It was clear that the arrival of Rory Doyle and his wife had irked Mrs McKinnon.

  ‘Give me five minutes with that man, I would tell him a thing or two. Ruined Amy’s life he did and he had the nerve to turn up at her funeral. Maybe ’tis his uncouth wife I should have the five minutes with. I would wipe the smile from her face and shut her up, I would.’ Mrs McKinnon shook as she spoke and twisted her handkerchief around until it resembled a rope.

  Ruby reached out and took her hand.

  ‘Come on, Mrs McKinnon,’ she said gently. ‘I’m taking you to bed for a nap. Even if you only have an hour. It will make you feel much better. Come on.’

  Mrs McKinnon tucked her handkerchief back into her pocket. A long sigh, followed by a dip in her shoulders told Ruby there would be no resistance to a suggestion that would have seemed ridiculous only a week ago.

  ‘An hour would be lovely, just to get my breath back,’ she said gratefully.

  Minutes later, Jane almost fell into the kitchen, carrying a tray which was obviously far too heavy for her. She staggered to the table and laid it down with a crash. A week earlier, Amy would have yelled at her for doing such a thing. Adjusting her cap, Jane let rip with her opinion of the guests.

  ‘Jesus, if you listened to them all, they knew her so well they could even tell ye what time she went to the fecking toilet every day. One of them didn’t even know she had lost five boys, said it was four, arguing with the woman next to him he was. I’ve never seen one of their faces here before, ever, and I nearly said so.’

  At that moment, Ruby returned from putting Mrs McKinnon to bed. ‘You won’t say anything to anyone, Jane. That is not our place. What you will do is make sure today goes without a hitch and stop swearing.’ There was a coolness and determination in Ruby’s voice, which had the desired effect on Jane.

  She’s worrying me sick,’ Ruby confided, nodding towards the passageway that led to the McKinnons’
rooms. ‘If you had told me she would ever be like this, I would have laughed in your face. She is the strongest woman I know.’

  Jane began to clear the tray she had carried into the sink without a grumble. In the face of despair and disaster, the balance of power had shifted. Ruby, without effort or compromise, had donned the mantle of responsibility.

  Lottie stood at the sink, washing out the sherry glasses. ‘Maisie at the pub said that happens to people as they get older. She said sometimes a death can make a person grow old overnight and that some people, those who are really in love and have been together a long time, they die, one after the other, in minutes.’

  Betsy was the next to enter the room, backwards, carrying two trays, precariously balanced, one on top of the other. ‘I’ve told the girls just to wait at the top of the stairs for now and Jimmy and Danny are carrying up two more trays of drinks from the butler’s pantry. I hardly recognized Jimmy, he’s scrubbed up so well. Where’s Mrs McKinnon?’ There was a hint of surprise in her voice as she looked around the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve put her to bed,’ Ruby replied and an expression of understanding passed between Betsy and Ruby. Betsy would have done just the same had she been in the kitchen at the time. ‘It just got to her, Betsy,’ Ruby said. ‘I wish Amy was here, she would know what to do with Mrs McKinnon and how to help her.’

  And that was when it hit her. Amy wasn’t there and no matter how hard they prayed or wished for it, Amy never would be again. Ever. She wasn’t in the next room, or down at the cottages visiting her mother. She wasn’t to be found in the cool room, or counting the sacks of flour, stacked like a row of praying monks in the larder. She was nowhere. She was gone. Forever. Speaking Amy’s name out loud, in the kitchen where she had spent all of her waking hours, was almost too much. They were interlopers in Amy’s kitchen and Amy had gone. Ruby felt the floor shift and her world tumble. Without any warning, she found herself sobbing. Her heart physically hurt, so much that she put her hand up to her chest. It was a pain induced by grief and longing and yet she had known Amy for very little time compared to Jane and Betsy. As the four girls now hugged each other tight, Ruby wondered, What is happening to us? We are all falling apart.

  *

  ‘That’s the last of them, Lord Charles,’ said McKinnon, as they walked back up the steps. ‘I think it can be said that despite the circumstances, we gave the lady a wonderful send off.’

  Charles didn’t reply, but stood and waved until the last car had turned the bend in the drive. It had not rained and the sun had shone. He was glad of it. His guests could return to England and not complain about the Irish weather at least. The smell of the earth, the food, the language the lack of heating and the infernal damp, yes, but on this occasion, not the rain. He turned to speak to McKinnon and realized, with some surprise, that he had already left and he was completely alone.

  Desolate. There were times in Liverpool when he experienced a familiar sensation. That was when he stepped into second-hand clothes, and became someone else entirely. A man called Charlie. A man who dallied with a girl named Stella. A man for whom no one waited to return safely home. He felt lonely then, in Liverpool. But that was a different kind of loneliness, born of living with a pain he could not share with anyone.

  He wondered now if anyone would notice or mind if he sat outside on the steps for a moment and then it struck him. Who was there left to care? His parents, his children, Isobel, all gone. The only people to show concern were those he employed and paid. Not a living soul cared for him. He housed and fed and paid for every kind word that would ever be spoken to him, in one way or another. He felt exhausted. Looking out across the lawn to the river, he could hear the water roaring as it gushed over boulders and pebbles. His gaze was immediately drawn to her, walking happily in the fading sunshine, his Isobel. They had never loved each other. Theirs had truly been a union of two lost souls seeking a life of stability and security, but the love they did create and share, the love of their children, could never be erased. It would always be there, within the ruined walls of Ballyford.

  She moved across the mossy green lawn, carrying a laughing baby in one arm, snapping branches from the lilac tree with the other. She once carried them indoors and placed them in a vase in their bedroom and they both admired their scent and beauty. The smell of lilac came towards him now and filled his nostrils. It was pungent and overpowering, her parting gift to him. Now their sons, of varying ages, were running around her, laughing and jumping, trying to attract her attention. He could hear their voices shouting gleefully, ‘Mummy, Mummy.’ The sun dipped and they became black shapes against the light, framed in a halo of gold and then they turned towards him and he saw their smiling faces.

  ‘Isobel,’ he whispered hoarsely, his throat thick with tears. He yearned to be with their children. It was all Isobel had ever asked for and all she had wanted and in that moment, he knew, she had taken herself to them. It was as obvious as the day is long because it was what he had always wanted too. The realization dawned on him and made his heart beat faster. Isobel had killed herself to be with her boys, but Amy, she had taken Amy too. He had kept his true emotions deeply buried. Locked down by dalliances with Stella, buying ships and anything he could amuse himself with to distract his thoughts, but these things, they were not available for a woman such as Isobel. By running away from Ballyford. By involving himself in every time-consuming activity he could create, he had kept his real thoughts far away. Thoughts he had never allowed to surface and the words that ran around in his head, but remained unspoken, I want to be with them too. Isobel had, she always had. She was never afraid to utter the unspeakable. Words which terrified him, haunted him.

  I want to die and be with my babies, Charles. They are cold, they need me. I have to be with them. He ran from her because he could not bear to hear those words spoken. Once he accepted those words as real, he would be lost. He had wanted to crumble and die and to be with the children too and now he knew that Isobel had killed herself and had taken poor Amy with her.

  ‘Isobel?’ he shouted across the lawn. The images of Isobel and his children, blurred through his tears. ‘Isobel?’

  But there was no Isobel. She was happy, united with her babies, doing in death what she had always dreamt of in life. A desolate and lonely Charles sobbed and shed the tears of a man who wished he was brave enough to join them.

  *

  Mr McKinnon opened the door slowly and saw his wife lying on top of the bedcovers, fully dressed, staring at the ceiling. He noticed that she was wearing her shoes. In all their years of marriage, he had never once been allowed to put his shoes on the bed. It was a sure sign, something was very wrong.

  ‘How are you doing?’ He spoke softly as he sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand in his.

  She turned her red-rimmed eyes towards him and they became washed with a fresh flow of tears.

  ‘What a day, what a week.’ She took her handkerchief from the bedside table and blew her nose and then pushed herself up on the pillows.

  ‘Do you know, when I saw them both before me, laid out on the floor, they looked as though they were sleeping, taking a nap, but I knew really, they were already dead. I feel so guilty, there they were, dead, and the first words I could think of were, “At last, it must be all over.”’

  ‘Hush now, hush.’ McKinnon put his arm around her shoulder. ‘You have not a thing in this world to feel guilty about. No one could have looked out or cared for Lady Isobel as much as you did. You did everything you could, even bringing in Ruby to watch over her all day long.’ Mrs McKinnon shook her head, as if to swat away his words.

  ‘It was all she ever wanted, you know, to die, but she would never have wanted to take anyone with her. It was the awful thing we used to dread, wasn’t it? The thing we ignored knowing that really, if we are honest with ourselves, we brought Ruby here not just because of who she was, but to keep her alive and watch over her for us. We knew she was a danger to herself.’

>   Mr McKinnon sighed and squeezed her hand.

  ‘If we really are being honest with ourselves, then yes, I suppose it was. It was after the last one died, I think, that things became worse. When she knew that Lord Charles would not tolerate anymore. When he began to spend more time in Liverpool, I think she knew there was no hope of ever holding her own child again. I don’t think she could bear that.’

  ‘Aye, well there’s more to it than that. Mrs Shevlin asked me to fetch her wedding ring, for the coffin. It has slipped off her finger during the past year, her fingers were so thin and I had put it in her bedside drawer. Look what I found in her drawer when I went to fetch it.’ Mrs McKinnon opened her own bedside drawer and pulled out two letters, both addressed to Lady Isobel.

  A frown crossed Mr McKinnon’s face as he took the letters from his wife. ‘God in heaven what next?’ he muttered, opening the first letter. It was a folded sheet of rough paper, but the writing was clear and what was more, it was familiar.

  I have information that your husband is up to no good when he is in Liverpool. I have taken the liberty of employing a private detective on your behalf and he will shortly write you a report. When you have this information, you should contact your solicitor immediately and protect yourself.

  The letter was unsigned. ‘Who the hell do you think wrote this?’

  ‘Well, look at the paper,’ said Mrs McKinnon. ‘Do you recognize the writing.

  The colour slowly left Mr McKinnon’s face. ‘My God, it’s Amy’s handwriting,’ he said, with alarm in his voice.

  ‘Aye, it is. There is no denying, it is. I think it’s all my fault.’ Mrs McKinnon reached for her handkerchief as the tears began to flow once more.

  ‘Amy wanted to leave once, you know, a few years back. She said to me, “God, I’ve seen nothing but this castle. I need to experience something of this world before I die.” I knew in my heart as God was my judge, she wanted to head to Liverpool and look for Rory Doyle. I persuaded Amy to stay, in truth, because I could not face having to work with another cook I did not know and look what happened to her. She never found Rory Doyle, but he came back to her and I know, as God is my judge, he put her up to that, but I will never be able to prove it. All he has ever wanted to do since that night is hurt the FitzDeane family.’