The Girl from Ballymor

by Kathleen McGurl

  I found it hard to eat as people kept coming and slapping me on the back, congratulating me for finding the child. I hadn’t done much, I told them. The search party would undoubtedly have gone to the abandoned village today and found him. But I admit I enjoyed the attention.

  When Sammy had finished eating, Dave began asking him questions – how had he found the cottage; had he been scared in the night; had he been cold. The little boy was tired and overwhelmed but answered as best he could.

  ‘The lady kept me warm,’ he said. ‘And I wasn’t scared when she was there.’

  Dave smiled at me. ‘Once again, thank you so much,’ he said.

  I was about to say something, to get Sammy to explain about the other lady he’d mentioned, when I heard my name shouted from across the busy bar.

  ‘Maria, the hero of the hour!’ Declan arrived, leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. ‘Well done, you.’

  I blushed, and put down my cutlery. I’d more or less finished the breakfast and Declan was someone I needed to talk to. ‘Do you have a minute?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, and led the way to a snug at the back of the pub, which was a little quieter than the main bar.

  He sat down on a stool, I sat opposite, and blurted out: ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Declan?’

  His eyes widened and he leaned away from me a little. ‘Well, sure I believe in the Holy Ghost, of course, but I’m after guessing that’s not what you’re referring to?’

  I told him then of my dream, and how I had the distinct impression Kitty had come to me to tell me where to look for the child.

  ‘And Sammy says that he was kept warm by a lady who cuddled him all night. He said she gave him this.’ I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Celtic knot brooch. Suddenly I remembered where I had seen it before. ‘Declan, some of the Kitty portraits show her wearing a brooch just like this to pin her shawl in place.’

  ‘Maria, it’s a lovely thing to believe that our ancestors are able to speak to us in our dreams and help us out, but . . .’

  ‘I know. You’re going to say it can’t be true. That Sammy must have found the brooch, and hallucinated or dreamed the lady cuddling him. And that I dreamed of Kitty only because I’ve been obsessing about her recently. We’ve no way of knowing if the cottage he was in was even hers.’

  ‘Someone was certainly watching over Sammy during the night,’ Declan said, quietly. ‘I prefer to believe that it was our Father in heaven. But there is a lot we don’t know about what happens to our souls after death. Whatever it was that made you have your dream and decide to check out the ruined village, we should give thanks for. Sometimes we must accept there is no earthly explanation.’ He smiled.

  I smiled too, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to accept what he so obviously believed – that God had led me to the village and had protected Sammy. I wasn’t sure either that I wanted to believe in Kitty’s ghost. I’d always prided myself on being rational, scientific, down-to-earth. But my dream had definitely led me to Sammy; more than that, it had helped show me what a mother’s love felt like. And cuddling Sammy had taught me I was capable of giving that love, too. I glanced down again at the brooch I still held in my hand, and gave it a rub with a tissue. It looked like it could be made of copper. Could it really be the same one Michael McCarthy had painted on all those portraits of Kitty?

  CHAPTER 24

  Michael

  No one in O’Sullivan’s knew what had become of Kitty. Michael was encouraged a little that no one confirmed her death, but many of the men drinking at the bar either had not heard of Kitty McCarthy, being new to the town in the years since the famine, or if they were men Michael recognised they knew nothing of what had become of her. No one remembered seeing her on the road-building scheme after Michael had left. They assumed she must have gone away, perhaps to Cork to the workhouse, or to some other town in search of food or work, or perhaps – they shook their heads sadly – perhaps she had perished alone, away from home, and been buried in a nameless grave. There was sympathy in the men’s eyes as they spoke to him. They had all lost someone, or even their entire families, during the Great Hunger.

  ‘What became of Thomas Waterman’s agent, William Smith?’ Michael asked them. He’d written to Smith, a year after arriving in New York, enquiring after Kitty, but had received no reply.

  ‘Smith? Died, back in ’49, or maybe ’50, so he did. Famine fever, it was.’ The man who answered Michael, a man named Riley who Michael vaguely recognised, grimaced and shook his head. ‘No loss to the town, he wasn’t. ’Twas him raising the rents when we were starving, lining his own pockets, so he was. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but there were no tears shed when Smith died. Waterman paid for his funeral – he’s in the churchyard yonder, with a stone engraved and all. No mass grave for him, like so many ended up in, like my own poor Eileen and three of my little ones.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Michael said. So many people had stories like Riley’s – losing loved ones and children, and not even being able to bury them decently. And his own family – his siblings were all buried together in the churchyard, but with nothing at all to mark the spot. There’d been a wooden cross eleven years ago, he remembered, but it must have rotted away over the years. That was something he would need to sort out, while he was here. They deserved to be remembered properly.

  ‘Waterman’s still up at the big house,’ the man continued. ‘You might ask him if he knows anything of your mother.’

  ‘Waterman?’ For a moment Michael could not contemplate calling at Ballymor House. Surely the servants there would not even open the door to the likes of him. And then he remembered that he was a rich man now, a gentleman, and the equal of Thomas Waterman.

  ‘He’ll see you, so he will,’ Riley said. ‘Done a lot for the town since the Hunger – employing people, rebuilding, making sure that it can’t happen again, not here.’

  Michael raised his eyebrows. He’d barely ever seen Waterman – just once or twice as a distant figure on a horse surveying his lands. He’d never spoken to him. He dimly remembered sketching him once. But he remembered how Kitty spoke of the landowner, saying he was evil, the devil incarnate, a man who abused his position of power and authority and who did not care about the ordinary people at all. ‘Really? That’s not the man I remember. When I was here he seemed to be turning a blind eye to our suffering.’

  ‘Aye, he did to begin with, ’tis true. Kept away at the big house or over in England. But, in the last year or two of the Hunger, he seemed to take pity and began to use his money and position to do some good. I don’t know if up till then he’d been ignoring what was going on or was just ignorant as sin. Either way, I’d say he’ll do what he can to help you now.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll go and see him,’ Michael said, passing Riley a few coins to pay for his next drink. It couldn’t hurt, and he was intrigued now, to meet this man his mother had despised but whom the townsfolk seemed now to like and respect.

  *

  The following day Michael awoke to a day that was grey and wet, with low clouds and a faint drizzle that clung to your face but did not penetrate clothing. He considered borrowing a horse from the stables at O’Sullivan’s, but it would feel wrong to approach Kildoolin on horseback. And Ballymor House was in the same direction as Kildoolin – it would not be worth riding there and then returning back to town with the horse before going to the village. No, he would walk everywhere, as he had always done in his youth. It was a shame the weather was not better – he had hoped to see the view across the moors with the distant glimmer of the sea from outside the old cottage, the view he remembered so well. But Irish countryside was beautiful in any weather. In New York, the weather was predictable with bitterly cold winters and scorching hot summers. Not so in Ireland, where summer days could be chilly and winter days balmy. Today looked like a grand, soft day. He would walk and the exercise would be good for him, especially after the weeks cooped up on-board the Victory.

  After break
fasting on black pudding, rashers and eggs – a meal the like of which he had never before eaten in this town – he donned his hat and travelling cloak, and set off towards Ballymor House. He remembered the roads well, although plenty had changed since the old days. The National School was still there, where he had learned to read, write, and draw. The workhouse on the edge of town had closed down. It had been full to bursting when he’d left Ireland, but now the windows were boarded up. It was a grim place, made grimmer still by Michael’s memories of passing the pitiful people outside its gates, clamouring to be allowed in to save themselves from starvation, only to die of disease instead. Today, a group of half a dozen children were playing in the street outside the old workhouse, running around laughing, involved in a game of tag. Michael stood watching them for a moment, smiling. It was good to see such energetic, healthy, well-fed children. They were Ireland’s future, and may God forbid they ever have to suffer the way his brothers and sisters had.

  There were numerous empty and decaying cottages on the way out of town, but also a few new buildings with sparkling whitewash and tiled roofs. Evidence of the horrors of the ’40s was everywhere, but Michael could also see that lives were being rebuilt. Was Kitty out there, rebuilding her life, somewhere away from here? As soon as he had this thought he dismissed it. She would not have left the place where her children were buried.

  Out of town, he turned right down the lane towards Ballymor House, although he longed to go on, and then left, up the track to Kildoolin. But better that he spoke to Thomas Waterman first and find out if the landowner had any news for him. He had never before been right up to the house; he’d only caught glimpses of it from a distance, when he was poaching ducks from the small lake in its grounds. He smiled wryly at the memory.

  It seemed strange to be marching up to the front door of such a house, here in Ireland. But he was a gentleman now, a rich one, and the front door was where he would be expected to enter. He climbed the stone steps and tugged on the bell rope. It was answered by an elderly butler with an English accent.

  ‘My name is Michael McCarthy,’ Michael said, his throat feeling inexplicably dry. ‘If Mr Waterman is at home, I would very much like an interview with him.’ He realised that although he knew how moneyed society operated in New York, he had no idea of the niceties of social interaction here in Ireland, the land of his birth. He hoped he was not making a fool of himself. Should he have left a calling card first?

  ‘Please enter, and I shall see if the master is at home,’ the butler replied. Michael was shown into a large wood-panelled hall, hung with numerous oil paintings. As the butler disappeared along a corridor in search of his master, Michael perused the pictures with his artist’s eye, interested to see what kind of paintings an English gentleman collected. They were mostly family portraits of past generations of Watermans, but, nestled among them, framed and behind glass, was a small pencil sketch of a man on a horse. Michael approached and peered closely at it, recognising his own work from so many years earlier. How on earth had that come to be in Waterman’s possession and hung in this house? It made no sense.

  He was still staring at it when a discreet cough made him spin around, expecting the return of the butler. But instead he found himself facing a silver-haired, well-dressed man of upright bearing.

  ‘Michael McCarthy?’ the man said, his voice tinged with an emotion Michael could not quite place. ‘I am Thomas Waterman, at your service. Please, let’s go through to the drawing room.’

  Michael followed him through to an ornate but old-fashioned room, and took a seat beside the fire. His clothes steamed slightly as the day’s drizzle dried from them.

  Waterman sat opposite, staring at him. For a while he said nothing, and Michael fidgeted, wondering how to start the conversation he needed to have. Eventually, Waterman broke the silence, his words surprising and confusing Michael. ‘I’ve waited so long to meet you. I didn’t know you were back in Ireland or I would have sent an invitation.’

  ‘Sir? Are you mistaking me for someone else perhaps?’ Michael frowned. That was the only explanation he could think of for Waterman’s words.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. You are Kitty McCarthy’s son, are you not?’

  ‘I am.’ Here was a way in to the conversation. ‘In fact, that is why I am here. She lived in one of your cottages in Kildoolin. I am newly returned from America and am trying to find out what has become of her. I left Ireland, you see, during the famine in 1849, and have not heard from her since.’

  ‘I know exactly when you left Ireland, dear boy,’ Waterman said, that strange mix of emotions clouding his speech – a tinge of joy, Michael thought, mixed with disbelief and anguish.

  Michael frowned. How could he know, why would it have been of interest to him? It dawned on him that perhaps Waterman remembered when James O’Dowell left, and was somehow aware another local person had been on the same boat. ‘Sir, do you have any news of my mother?’

  Waterman shook his head. ‘After you left, I instructed Smith not to demand any further rents from your mother. Smith died of the cholera not long afterwards anyway. I did not go up to Kildoolin for many years – your mother had made it clear she did not want to see me, or accept any help from me. There is no one left in Kildoolin now.’

  ‘Forgive me, sir. I am confused. Did you speak to my mother, then?’

  ‘I gave her food, and offered her a job with board and lodging. She turned me down. She was too proud to accept.’ Waterman shook his head, sadly, then turned away from Michael to put more wood on the fire.

  ‘You offered her a job?’ Michael dimly remembered the food Kitty had brought home one night, just before he’d left. She’d said it had been given to her by James O’Dowell. He’d known then that was a lie, but had been too hungry to question her further about it.

  ‘Yes. I knew she would be alone and starving after you left. I would have bought her passage to America too, if she’d asked, but she would only accept money for one ticket, for you.’

  Michael stood and shook his head. ‘No. My mother sold a piece of jewellery, a brooch shaped like a Celtic knot, to buy my ticket.’

  Waterman smiled indulgently. ‘She showed me the brooch. It was worthless.’

  Michael stared at the older man, his mind working overtime. The brooch was worthless? How then had she come by the money?

  ‘I first met your mother when she was just fifteen,’ Waterman went on, a wistful look in his eye. ‘She was a beauty back then, a real beauty. She was still beautiful, even when she was so painfully thin at the height of the famine.’

  Michael felt a cold chill grip him from the inside. What was Waterman implying?

  ‘Michael, son, look in the mirror. You can’t believe you were Patrick McCarthy’s son, surely? You so dark, where he was fair, and your mother flame haired?’

  ‘No! She wouldn’t!’

  ‘Why do you think I paid for your ticket? Because you were my son, my only son, and I owed it to you to give you a chance!’

  ‘No! She sold the brooch. She told me that. She never lied. Never!’ Though she had lied to him, he’d known that even then, about the basket of food. Michael paced around the room. It wasn’t true. Kitty had hated this man. She couldn’t have lain with him. Not willingly . . . A terrible thought came to him. Perhaps she hadn’t been willing. It would explain her hatred of Waterman.

  ‘She sold me something. But not the brooch. She sold me something else,’ Waterman said, quietly.

  Michael stared at him and shuddered with revulsion. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you? Didn’t she say I’d offered to do all I could to help you, that you should turn to me if ever you needed assistance? Do you need that now? I can set you up with an allowance perhaps. You can live here, or, if you prefer your own space, I shall build a house for you in the grounds . . .’ Waterman crossed the room towards Michael and reached out a hand to pat his shoulder.

  Michael flinched as though burned by W
aterman’s touch. ‘I am a rich and successful man now, Mr Waterman. I do not need your charity. I will of course repay you the cost of my ticket to New York. But I must ask once again, do you have any idea what became of my mother?’

  ‘You don’t need to repay me, son. And I am sorry, I have no news of Kitty. She told me to keep away from her and so I did. I expected her to call again and take up my offer of a job, whenever she felt desperate enough, but she never did. There was nothing more I could do.’ He gazed out of the window, not meeting Michael’s eyes. ‘Have you checked with the priest? Perhaps there are records . . .’

  ‘I have, and there are no records of her death or burial. But that means nothing, the way things were during those terrible years. I cannot believe she is gone though.’

  ‘I am truly sorry. I wish you luck in your quest to find her. If you do, send her my . . . my regards.’ Waterman hung his head for a moment, then looked up at Michael with sad, watery eyes before continuing. ‘If there is anything I can do for you . . . you are my only son, my heir . . . I have no other . . . I will leave everything to you, if only you will acknowledge me as your father . . .’

  Michael had moved towards the door to show himself out, but turned back at these last words. Waterman looked suddenly aged and diminished. Gone was the proud man who’d sat on his horse, surveying his lands and the peasants working for him. In his place was this broken, lonely man, the last of his line, with no one to share his life, no wife and no children.